Wicked City (32 page)

Some reporters joined in on the applause, which struck me as being in bad taste. I wondered if the mayor truly did have the votes to pass the bill. Last I had heard from Elspeth, there were still enough holdouts that defeat was possible. But perhaps Madison's defection had tipped the scales.

“Now,” said the mayor, when he could be heard, “you might have noticed our very special guest. It's been my great pleasure to talk to him tonight, but I know the rest of you haven't yet had the opportunity. So I thought I'd give him a chance to say a few words to everyone here. Especially my boys in the press, since I don't know that you'd let me leave the room otherwise.”

Laughter and clapping. Lily's pen hovered over the page, trembling with her eagerness to record what would surely be tomorrow morning's top story. For my part, I felt a curious unease as Archibald Madison thanked the mayor and stood up. He had that same fanatic gleam I recognized from his speech during the evidentiary hearing. His zeal had made him influential; I supposed he had a certain charisma. But he disturbed me. His hatred of vampires ran so irrationally deep that I couldn't help but shudder every time I looked at him. He thought of them as vermin, whether or not he had agreed to side with the mayor out of pragmatism.

“I'd like to tell you a story, if you'll permit me. The relevance will come clear soon enough. This story is about a youngster, never mind who for the moment, who grows up learning that true justice can sometimes only be found in hatred. This youngster knows, or has been told, about those who look and act just like real people, but who have dangerous lusts, unnatural desires. They are not people, they are Others and they must be killed. The youngster learns to kill, taught by a father who learned this lesson in blood and fire and pain. The youngster's father is a hero, and a hero is a hard man to look up to.”

From the other side of the table, Amir caught my gaze and frowned. He jerked his head ever so slightly to the right. I turned around in time to catch a faint movement by the grand doors, the hint of a whisper. Had someone else arrived? But no one entered the room, and I focused again on Madison's odd speech.

“… And so this youngster came up in the world, learned to kill and then learned to be shrewd. To repudiate killing these Others in public while effecting means to eradicate them in private. The youngster sought justice through hate, but what she didn't understand—”

A gasp went through the room and landed on me like a bucket of icy water.
Oh God no,
I thought. I couldn't move.

“What
she
didn't understand—” Madison continued, louder now, “was that which her hero father had never taught. There might be justice, and there might be virtue of fighting abominations, but there is a third pillar that supports these two, one that
must
support them, if we are to value ourselves as men over beasts, as humans over Others. And that third pillar is the law. Human and imperfect though it may be, it must be obeyed or broken at one's own peril. This youngster broke the law, and sought to blame it on someone far less capable than herself. But I am grateful to her, in my own way. I'm grateful because it caused me to see how my own teachings have neglected this important pillar, this separation of man from beast. Yes, vampires are abominations. Yes, I will fight until I die for their eradication from society. But I will never advocate the breaking of the law. Given that alternative, we are better off with Faust in the hands of the sinners who will suffer its taint.”

Whispers ran through the room. I looked at my plate, struggling to keep my face neutral. A few of the sharper journalists gave me long, speculative looks. I wondered if I should leave, but surely fleeing the scene would only confirm everyone's suspicions.

Madison looked around the table and, apparently satisfied, pulled a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. I couldn't help it; I looked at Amir. He stared back at me, a mirror of my own shock and helplessness. His hands didn't move, his face didn't change expression, but I felt his offer:
make a wish
.

I looked away. Even if I made a wish now, I didn't see how I could undo the disaster unfolding with such choreographed precision before me. What would be equal to this devastation? I might as well wish I had never been born.

“I will read you a letter, sent to my associate one week before the killings began. ‘My father'—”

“Mr. Madison!” To everyone's utter astonishment, Judith Brandon bolted upright, nearly knocking over her chair. “You will refrain from reading classified material from ongoing police investigations in this public space!”

The mayor looked significantly less apoplectic than his advisor, but he nodded. “Yes, Madison, what's this all about?”

Madison looked up from his paper. “It's about bringing to justice the true perpetrator of these crimes. It's about exposing a hypocrite and a fraud to the world.” He raised a trembling hand, like the finger of a vengeful deity.

“Zephyr Hollis,” he said, “before God, man, and law, I declare you a murderer.”

I found myself on my feet, my chair on the floor behind me. “I have done nothing!”

“Do you deny that you wrote letters to my associate for months encouraging these murders, and then provided him with the means to do so?”

“Of course I deny it! I have dedicated my life to improving conditions—”

“A clever disguise of your true purpose, revealed here in this letter.” Abruptly, before Mrs. Brandon could stop him, he strode to the reporters' side of the table and tossed the paper in front of Bill Oliver.

“See the evidence for yourselves,” he said.

“Mr. Madison!” Judith Brandon looked on the verge of tears.

The mayor stood up, but didn't walk over. He seemed disappointed and amused at the same time, though this stunt of Madison's had surely dealt his plans a body blow. “I take it you haven't actually changed your position on Faust?”

Madison laughed. “The devils don't need their own brew, Mr. Mayor. Now, if you'll excuse me…”

Something hard and cold snapped around my wrists. I didn't even have time to turn around. Harry would say I needed more training, and perhaps I did. But I can't berate myself for not realizing that McConnell had stepped behind me with a pair of handcuffs.

“You're under arrest, Miss Hollis,” he said, his lips like a lover's against my ear.

“You've probably heard this one before,” I said, “but I've been framed.”

“Of course you have,” he said. I was almost grateful that he led me from the banquet; with all the flashbulbs in my eyes, I could hardly see at all.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“My sister plays harmonica,” I said, “but I could never be bothered to learn. Seems such a shame, now.”

Across from me, separated by a grubby card table and an ashtray with a dozen cigarette butts, McConnell rubbed his temples. “I would take this more seriously in your place, Miss Hollis.”

“I'm serious as a silver bullet,” I said, bravely tamping down a hysterical giggle. “But you can't blame me if these farcical charges prompt some levity. It's all a girl can do to keep from screaming.”

“I don't think the murder of thirteen vampires—one of whom was a decorated officer—is a farce.”

“I don't think so either. And yet here I am, the innocent accused.” I grimaced. “You can bet the mayor wasn't anticipating
that
for dessert.”

McConnell gave me a long look. We had been in this room for several hours at least. I could not know precisely, because they had relieved me of my pocketwatch along with most of my other possessions. I attempted to take heart from the fact that McConnell seemed so keen to wring a confession from me. It implied that the case against me was not as solid as he wished.

He stood up and stretched his arms high above his head, so they brushed the low ceiling. “I'm going to get tea, Miss Hollis. Would you like some?”

I wondered at his sudden change of mood. Perhaps his kindness now was meant as a shock to my system, after the relentless questioning of the last few hours. Perhaps he thought I would start blubbering into my tea and confess my sins.

His lips twisted in a sardonic half-smile. “I won't poison it, Miss Hollis.”

“With milk and extra sugar, if you please,” I said.

Alone in the small interrogation room, I looked around idly for some means of escape. McConnell's pen might have a point fine enough to tumble a lock. It wasn't long enough, however, and I wouldn't make it very far even if I could leave this room. I wrapped my arms around my torso, fingering the smooth silk of Lily's dress. Probably my dress now—I couldn't imagine her wearing it after my ignominious performance. At this very moment the presses would be running images of the vampire suffragette being dragged away in handcuffs. At least McConnell had condescended to remove them once we reached the safety of police headquarters. I took a strange comfort in the resplendence of my clothing; as though the aura of just-from-Paris Lanvin might shield me from the worst depredations of my situation. I had asked for a lawyer, and McConnell informed me that none could be sent up before tomorrow morning. And I expected no help from the mayor's quarter.

So I talked. My only hope was that somehow I could convince McConnell I was telling the truth. But even I had to admit the evidence against me appeared damning.

Soon enough, McConnell returned, bearing a tray with the full tea service. He'd even cut lemon wedges, which surprised me. I busied myself with pouring the hot water and adding liberal amounts of cream and sugar. My hands did not tremble, but only with great effort.

He drank his black with lemon, and sipped it like penance. “Why don't we talk about the juvenile vampire.”

A little tea splashed over my fingers. I took a careful sip and scalded my mouth. “Why?”

“Do you still deny it?”

I closed my eyes, and saw Judah pressed against Harry's window, looking down into the street. Had my police shadow seen my juvenile vampire in an attic window?

And what reason did I have to lie now? Perhaps telling the truth in this smaller matter would convince him that my denials of murder were truthful.

“Are you charging me?” I asked.

He pursed his lips. “We have been instructed not to,” he said.

“By whom?”

“Top brass.”

Good old Jimmy Walker kept his promises, much help they were to me now. “But you're sure I'm guilty?”

He set down his cup. “Yes, Miss Hollis.”

“Do you have evidence?”

“Enough, I think.”

“How odd that you hadn't brought me in already.”

He nodded. “I thought so. But I was told it would ‘muddy the waters,' in the matter of the current charges.”

“So here we are,” I said. I liked the tea: it was strong and sweet, and I hadn't had real cream in at least a month. I felt fortified, better than I had in hours. “Tea for two and two for tea.”

McConnell laughed. “Indeed, Miss Hollis. But you must realize how hopeless your situation has become. I can make sure things go better for you if you confess now.”

“Confess to what? Judah or the murders?”

“The murd—Judah?”

I finished the tea, the dregs sweet enough to hurt my teeth.
Time to play the ace.
“That's his name, the underage vampire I saved.”

“You admit it!”

“Yes.”

But his triumph quickly muted to anger. “And so you want only endangered the lives of countless people all for—what? You might as well have set off a bomb in Times Square.”

I rolled my eyes. “You'll note the complete lack of a body count.”

“That I know of—”

“Give yourself some credit, officer. I'm sure you've looked quite thoroughly.”

He put his hands flat on the table. “However you managed to avert disaster, the fact remains that you committed a felony, endangered lives and, perhaps most importantly for our purposes here tonight, risked hurting the cause of genuine vampire supporters more than some poor patsy like Bradley Keck ever could.”

“Mr. Keck might be a patsy, but he's not mine. I never wrote those letters.”

“Why did you save the underage vampire?”

“Because he's just a boy! A scared, traumatized little boy, of no greater danger to you or I than the newsboys down the street.”

“I've witnessed it, you know. When I was a boy in Raleigh a juvenile vampire drank dry two of his former playmates before the cops could take him down.”

I shuddered. No wonder McConnell despised me. “The trouble,” I said, softly, “is that at first they have less control than adults. If you can hold them for long enough, they come to their senses. Perhaps there's some … damage to their mental processes, but nothing to make them any more dangerous than you or me.”

“I think you're quite dangerous,” he said.

“I gathered.”

“How did you hold him?”

I decided against mentioning Amir. “In a locked basement.”

“The boy didn't hurt you?”

I couldn't tell him about my immunity either. I shook my head. “He had barely Awakened when I locked him in.”

“How did you decide it was safe?”

“When he asked me for his mother.”

This shocked him, I could tell, but he pressed on. “Where is he now?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Miss Hollis, do you understand the danger—”

“He
speaks
. We have conversations. He is no more blood mad than you.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Then believe this, Officer McConnell. You can imply all you wish that I'm some Trojan Horse, meant to infiltrate the cause of vampire rights. But I saved Judah because of how deeply I believe in them. Imagine if a human child came down with an illness that caused him to temporarily lash out at his caretakers? Even hit them in his insensate fury?”