Dead to Rites by Ari Marmell Read Free Book Online Page A

searching for a changeling, were you? All your asking around? Challenging a Court clerk to a duel in the middle of City Hall to force Judge Ylleuwyn to see you? The whole Chicago Seelie Court heard about it, and you know how aristocrats are. People
will
gossip so. It’s not terribly difficult to trace the rest of it, if you’re so inclined. I found Adalina rather easily, and I doubt I’m the only one.”
    Well… Fuck. I mean, it ain’t as though I’d had any reason to keep my investigation quiet at the time. Hadn’t learned why that woulda been wise until a lot later. Still, hearin’ it just laid out this way made me feel kinda goofy.
    Of course, it
also
meant that she’d been workin’ this angle for a while, getting herself ready to hold it over my head. That didn’t seem to jibe too smooth with the idea that she’d only come to me because someone was gunning for Ramona. Not proof she was lyin’, but definitely hinky.
    “Yeah, okay, but why were you diggin’ in the first—?”
    “Oh, Mick, none of that matters, and it’s not what you want to know. You want to know how I can do it.”
    Well, yes, there was that, too.
    “Quite simply, I have the means of brewing an elixir,” she said. “It’s tricky, a great deal of work, and the ingredients are… tough to come by, to say the least. But when mixed properly, there’s not much shy of death itself that it cannot cure. It’ll awaken your little Sleeping Ugly, guaranteed.”
    I decided to ignore the dig and focus on the big picture.
    “That’s mighty convenient, Ms. McCall, and a pretty ambitious claim. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to provide this elixir in advance?”
    “You don’t suppose correctly. And please, call me Carmen, since we’re such good friends now.”
    “So how do I know you’re being square with me—Ms. McCall? Why should I believe you can do what you say, or that you’ll come through even if you can?”
    “Because as I just said, I’m not looking to make you an enemy.” Guess
she
decided to ignore the dig, too. “You’re a detective, and you’ve made it very clear just how dangerous you can be. It’d be more trouble than it would be worth to double-cross you over this and try to get away with it, don’t you think?”
    Made sense. Sounded good. I didn’t trust a word of it, since I actually do
have
a brain, but it ain’t as if I had much choice. It’d been more’n a year now, and I still hadn’t been able to help Adalina one iota. If McCall was bein’ even halfway straight with me, I hadda go for it.
    Long enough to learn more, if nothing else. And I’d already known I was gonna have to go find Ramona at some point, even if I’d rather have done it
without
a new leggy Sword of Damocles hangin’ over me.
    “All right, lady, you got yourself a deal. I find Ramona for you, and then—”
    “Then you contact me. Without letting her know I’m the one who hired you. We’ve had, let’s say, a bit of a spat lately. I’m afraid she’s not going to let us help if she knows I’m involved. We’ll talk about what I need you to do then, how we’ll set up the meeting.”
    Oh, yeah. That didn’t sound hinky at all.
    “My card,” she said, handing over a torn strip of paper with a number scribbled on it. “Call me when everything’s ready. And chin up, Mick. You’re
this
close to Adalina’s cure. See you around, you big lug.”
    And then there was nothin’ for it but to watch her go swayin’ and swishin’ on her merry way, wondering again what the hell Ramona’d gotten me into—or maybe what I’d gotten her into, or what we’d both stumbled into—and also wondering why, as always, I seemed so damned determined to dig myself in even deeper.

CHAPTER FOUR
    “Hey, Bianca. Mick Oberon.”
    “Mick!” Even over the blower, through the cracklin’ and poppin’ of the line, she sounded all in. Sure, it coulda been the wee hours, but she
usually
sounded like that these days. Guess havin’ one daughter