Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (32 page)

He had a few hundred dollars inside in crisp new bills that made my fingers itch. Would it be wrong to steal from a criminal? I deliberately looked away from the money and started examining the cards in the many little slots. He’d already procured an American Express Black that made me blanch. It looked so normal, but somehow felt heavier in my hand. I crammed it back into place.

Finally, hidden behind his driver’s license, I found something out of place: a business card for Blackhaven Hotel. It was a rundown hotel that catered to the junkies of the supernatural world deep in West Hollywood. It used to be a magnificent place in the last century, but not now. It was not a place you went to for comfort and relaxation. It was the kind of place you went to score candy or enjoy a night with a prostitute without anyone asking too many questions or giving a damn about who you were. What would a newly made millionaire with a Black Card be doing at a place like that?

I checked the rest of his pockets, hoping to find a key because the Blackhaven wasn’t the kind of place that had spent the money to upgrade to electronic card keys, but I came up empty.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, slipping the business card into my pocket after putting his wallet back where I found it. Joey and Ronnie both looked up at me with questioning faces, but I rushed out of the room without explanation.

I ran to the front door and made my way through the house, looking for where Jackson left his keys. He didn’t have a pretty little key hook on the wall or a bowl by the door, but I managed to find them in the pocket of his jacket that he’d tossed on the back of the couch when he’d come in. Shuffling through the keys, I finally found the one that was totally out of place, stamped with Blackhaven, just visible through the tarnish.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out the amulet. Letting it hang by the lanyard, I held up the key with my other hand. The amulet swung toward the key and strained in my grasp to reach it.

“Gotcha,” I said, tucking the amulet back into my pocket, and worked to get the key off the ring. When I went back into the office, I found Joey staring at the printer, waiting for something as Ronnie gave up on the last drawer, shaking her head at me. The wisp from the hallway had floated into the office and was hovering over Jackson, glowing brighter and brighter.

“Nothing,” Ronnie said, “but Joey found the email that got Roane out of the Mound the night he was kidnapped.”

“We’re not calling the police,” I said.

“Mattie,” Joey turned to me as she grabbed the transcripts, “he kidnapped someone!”

“Joey, explain to me what we’re gonna say?” I said, tilting my head to the side, waiting.

“That he has the fairy prince locked up somewhere and is using him to grant him wishes?” Joey’s voice had started out so sure, but faltered the longer she looked at me.

“And how do we know that?”

“The blood in the utility place and this.” She held up the pages she’d printed.

“Uh huh,” I nodded. “And how do we explain how we came by that information?”

“Well, we, uh…” Joey stopped, realizing where I was going with this. “We broke into both places.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and her hand fell, the papers making a fluttering sound.

“Look, it’s okay,” I said. I crouched by Jackson and started untying his hands. The wisp darted in front of my face, blinding me for a moment. I waved it away, trying to blink past the spots in my vision. “I know where Roane is now, and we’re gonna go get him.”

“Why are you untying him?” Joey asked.

“Because we have to make it look like we were never here, and I’m not about to leave my scarf behind as evidence.” I wrapped the scarf around my neck and checked Jackson’s hands for any stray hairs that may have fallen. I tipped my head, calling Ronnie over to help me. She rushed over, and we pushed Jackson over onto his back, cringing at the sight of his broken nose and the smear of blood on the floor.

“Gotta fix that,” Ronnie said. I groaned in agreement before getting my hands under his shoulders while Ronnie took his legs. He was heavier than he looked, and we nearly dropped him twice as we shuffled into the hallway, especially with the wisp darting around, trying to trip us up and make us drop him. It took three tries to haul him into the master bedroom behind the last door I didn’t check and onto the bed and positioned as naturally as possible.

Ronnie ran into the en suite bathroom, coming back with some damp tissue that she used to clean the blood off his face, not that it did anything for his broken nose and I didn’t have any healing potions on me. Ronnie flushed the bloodied tissues, along with the ones that Joey used to clean the blood off the office floor, in the toilet.

“That’ll have to do,” Ronnie said with a sigh.

“Knockout powder has a strange effect on humans,” I said. “They wake up with hangover-like symptoms. Maybe he’ll just think he got drunk and passed out and just can’t remember what happened to his face.”

“Hold on!” Joey jumped and spun around before running out of the room, moving so fast she almost appeared to be flying.

“What in the—” Before Ronnie could finish her question, Joey was back with a bottle of whiskey and a glass. She set the glass on his nightstand and poured some whiskey in it before dribbling a couple of drops onto his lips. She stood back and admired her work, set the bottle on the nightstand, then wiped her fingerprints off.

“There, that should work.”

“It’ll have to,” I said, worried everything was unraveling. If we moved fast, I could get to Roane tonight, free him, and let the Dunhallows deal with this madman before he figured out who’d really done this to him.

“All right,” I said, pulling myself out of my dark thoughts and turning away from Jackson, “let’s fly like a banshee.”

Chapter 17

The Blackhaven hotel was in a dingy, rundown part of the city. The hotel was on a forgotten block that had been a glorious and affluent neighborhood in the last century. The buildings were all tall, red brick and with sweeping staircases leading to the front doors. But now the staircases were covered in graffiti, layers upon layers of spray paint, so that you couldn’t see what color the plaster had been originally. The red bricks were crumbling, holes eating away at the once beautiful facades, and though the buildings were as tall as ever, they appeared to slump under the weight of disappointment and broken dreams.

The Blackhaven was one of three identical buildings, sandwiched in the middle. At one time, during its heyday, all three buildings had been part of the Blackhaven, but as time and bankruptcy passed, the building had been cut up and sold in pieces. The two buildings on either side of the hotel were low-income housing now. Most of the apartments inside were occupied by multiple tenants, some just struggling to get back on their feet, others enjoying the creepy dens they had created, smoking, eating, or shooting up whatever they could get their boney hands on. Some part of me had a fleeting, horrible thought about the possibility of children living there, and I said a silent prayer that there weren’t any.

We sat in the car for a while, watching the street and the buildings, taking in our surroundings. Even at this angle, I could see the iron fire escapes on either side of the flanking buildings, knowing the one for the Blackhaven must’ve been in the back. How horrible to be a fairy trapped inside and your only means of escape as an iron torture system. We were going to have to get Roane out through the front.

“Mattie?” Ronnie whispered, drawing me back to the inside of the car, the heat of my cohorts warming me and chasing away the chill.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “we should go.” I dug into my bag, grabbed the canister of knockout powder, and crammed it into my jacket pocket, taking a second to check my wrist sheaths, reassuring myself of their presence.

Joey darted out of the car right behind me, and Ronnie and I closed our doors almost simultaneously before we headed across the street. The street was just as dark and depressing as the buildings on the block, with only two street lamps lit at either end of the block. The shadows both attracted a certain type of creature and deterred another. It deterred me, that was for damn sure.

The front door was unlocked, and we slipped inside, feeling the need to be quiet for some strange reason. I was a little surprised not to feel some sort of banishing wards or protection on the threshold. But I suppose, if there had been protection on the entrance, then someone like Jackson Racanelli wouldn’t have made it inside.

Everything about the foyer said “dingy,” and I found myself cringing away from touching anything, even brushing against the walls. The walls were covered in fading art deco and the floors were a dull marble. I wondered how beautiful they used to be when they were waxed and polished every other day. There was a huge, ornate mirror on one wall, facing the front desk, but it was tarnished and black in places. A small table sat under it with a vase full of flowers that had died and turned brown months ago. It was as though the owners had gone out of town ages ago and just forgot to come back.

The doors leading off of the lobby were chipped with paint flaking off. The stained glass windows were broken, and any sense of privacy was gone. Anything brass was tarnished and a layer of dust coated all of the table tops. I could see the elevator from here, but the way the metal grate stood half open and how dark it appeared inside, I knew there was no chance I’d be attempting to use it. It looked scarier than the one in our apartment building, and that was saying something.

Turning to look at the front desk, I could see the attendant was asleep, his feet up on the desk and his head lulled back, mouth hanging open.

“Charming,” Ronnie said, arching one brow.

“C’mon,” I said, leading the way to the once grand staircase. The banister was coated in a layer of grime, the dust turning into something sticky after the extended neglect. There were worn spots in the carpet on the stairs, threatening to trip us as we started up.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Ronnie whispered.

Glancing down at the key in my hand, I saw the number 1013 stamped on one side and sighed, “Tenth floor.” Joey made a noise behind us, but I pressed on, leading the way. I just didn’t trust that elevator to take me safely to the second floor, let alone a hundred feet up.

There were dim lights along the walls as we climbed flight after flight of stairs, but I had a feeling, if I were human, they wouldn’t provide sufficient light to see by since they were so used to living in full, bright light. There was a creepy, crawling feeling from the walls around us, separating us from the rooms and their occupants. But I didn’t want to think what was going on in those rooms if they could give off such a chilling aura.

Ronnie and I were nearly out of breath by the time we finally rounded the last flight of steps and stood on the tenth floor landing. Joey, on the other hand, looked as bright and ready to go as she had before taking the first step on the ground floor. Damn pixies.

We stared down the dark hallway, feeling the pressure of the night all around us. There were fewer sconces up here, and I wondered if Jackson had something to do with that. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joey reach out for Ronnie’s hand, and for a moment, I thought about taking her other hand, but I wanted mine free in case I needed to get to one of my weapons. I motioned with my head for them to follow and went down the hall.

The carpet felt squishy under my feet up here instead of threadbare as it had on the stairs. The air was musty, almost moist, and I could feel it coating my lungs. I kept my mouth closed, my lips pressed into a tight line, hoping to keep the worst of the toxic air out of my system.

Room 1013 was much farther than I expected it to be, the spaces between doors letting me know just how big the rooms must be. It was just so damn depressing to realize how far this place had fallen. A true testament of how far the entire city had fallen in the past few years as humans and supernaturals fought and supernaturals, like the Dunhallows and Theo, fought their own kind. If we couldn’t find a way to coexist, the rest of Havencrest was going to end up looking like the Blackhaven: dank, dark and dying.

I stopped in front of 1013 and held my breath as I slipped the key into the lock and turned it. We waited a moment, listening for any movement inside, suddenly terrified of the idea that Jackson had an accomplice and we were walking into a trap. Ronnie and I shared a look and I knew the same thought had just occurred to her as well. She pulled Joey with her as she took a step back, to the side of the door. I placed my hand on the doorknob and turned it as slowly as possible, grateful when it didn’t squeak. I threw the door open and darted away to the other side of the door as Ronnie, holding my breath as I waited for some sort of reaction from inside, but it remained eerily quiet.

I glanced at Ronnie again, and she just shrugged at me. I stepped forward, pulling out my knockout powder as I went, feeling better just having it in my hand and ready to throw.

The front room looked like any other front room of a suite except it was obvious the owners didn’t even bother to have maid service in the rooms either. The only deference to the dust were the sheets thrown over the furniture; they were once white and crisp, but now were dull and gray. Jackson hadn’t removed one sheet since he’d been here. There were lost will-o-wisps floating in the dark corners of the room, their flickering light the only thing to see by. I wasn’t exactly surprised to see them here.

There was a small wet bar on one wall, and nothing there had been touched either. What was Jackson doing here then? I motioned with my empty hand for Ronnie and Joey to follow me as I made my way across the room to the doorway in the far wall, figuring it lead to the bedroom. I heard Ronnie shut the door behind us, locking it and setting a freezing spell on the doorknob for good measure. I said another silent prayer that the small dose of knockout powder I’d hit Jackson with would keep him out long enough for us to get out of here.

Once in the bedroom, I risked turning on the light. I blinked in the sudden flood of light and missed whatever made Joey gasp in horror. I dropped to the floor, expecting an attack before my eyes adjusted to the new light. There was no attack, but I stumbled when I saw what made Joey gasp. I braced myself against the doorframe to push back up to my feet, holding onto it, feeling the paint chip away under my nails.