“What on Earth and in the Realm areyoudoing here, innocent?” Bel tugged the glass from Nicodemus’ hands and set it back on the bar.
Nicodemus narrowed his eyes. “I was drinking that.”
“You don’t like spirits. Youtrulydo not like beer. You sometimes tolerate wine.” Bel leaned against the bar and didn’t direct his gaze anywhere else but Nicodemus’ stinging face. “Even if I ignore that, as you and Holt might wish me to, I would wonder what you were thinking venturing into town when it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Nicodemus was tricked into meeting Bel’s stare. “It’s hardly the rowdiest bar around unless it has changed drastically since the last time I was here.” Which had been years ago, so that was possible.
Bel drew his eyebrows together. It did not look false. His confusion or irritation was genuine.
Nicodemus gestured weakly at the bar. “I’ve come here before.”
Bel’s frown deepened. “And you chose tonight to return.”
Nicodemus was imagining the slight weight Bel put on the wordtonight. He knew he was, his thoughts occupied with his oncoming rut. He still had to turn his face away. “What of it? I’m not bothered by a storm.”
“A storm?” Bel repeated incredulously. “Do you not read the papers? I know very well you do. You read nearly everything.”
“What have the papers to do with anything?” Nicodemus demanded in return, keeping his voice low since he had already attracted stares. He glanced down over Bel’s clean, pressed shirt and tight-fitting black and gray vest with the pattern that somehow made Bel’s gaze even sharper. Bel’s puff tie was scarlet and fine, and he had bothered with a stick pin. Bel was not in his best, but it was close. “Are you working or here for....”
All trace of expression on Bel’s face vanished.
Nicodemus swallowed whatever foolishness he might have said, abruptly uncertain. “Have I missed something?” Distracted by his rut, he must have. He tugged at his attached shirt collar, then startled to realize he had unbuttoned it at some point on his walk through town.
Bel’s attention briefly dipped to Nicodemus’ opened shirt. “You shouldn’t be out.”
“What did I miss?” Nicodemus drew himself up. “I knew you were hiding something. Didn’t I say as much?”
Bel met his gaze but said nothing.
Nicodemus studied the nicks in the wood of the bar. “I admit to some...distraction. I clearly did not notice something you and Holt thought I should have. But if it was so risky, you might have told me about it.”
The pause before Bel answered should have made Nicodemus bristle. If his bristling would have remotely affected Bel, he would have.
In any event, Bel either didn’t notice or didn’t care to comment on Nicodemus’ prevarication. He said, “There has been a spate of news stories in the past weeks about missing people, or found dead after what are assumed to be tragic accidents. Unreliable husband does not return home, many assume he ran off. Local drunk stumbled onto the train tracks. Something sparked a fire that quickly got out of hand, taking a barn and perhaps an itinerant farmhand with it. Until two days ago, when someone found a body that did not suffer a fall or some random and unfortunate misadventure.”
“Ah,” whispered Nicodemus, who should have noticed a series of strange accidents and deaths. Hehadnoted the incidents, but their town had several Rings, and that did things to luck and circumstance, sometimes. Just passing near a Ring was enough to influence a person, or so children were taught. The papers were often full of lies, especially about anyone touched by the Realm, but Nicodemus should have asked one of the peculiari. He should have made himself approach Bel, who handled cases others wouldn’t. Stricken, he asked now. “What happened to them?”
“You don’t want to know, innocent.”
Innocenttwice in one evening. Nicodemus was truly impressing Bel tonight.
“Murder with magic involved? Grim and grisly enough to drawyourattention instead of one of the others? I think I want to know,” Nicodemus insisted, although he knew no such thing. He was a glorified housekeeper or perhaps a librarian. He was not and never would be someone like Bel, who even State agents would not tangle with, and who answered to Holt but very clearly did not have to.
“Flayed,” Bel surprised him with the answer, but thankfully did not elaborate. Nicodemus mouthed the word with distant shock. Bel gave him a moment, generous and irksome, then said, “We should get you home.”
Home, while Bel hunted a killer like that. “Is it another peculiari?” Nicodemus looked up, steeling himself. However silly he was to Bel, Nicodemus could at least try to be useful. “Then you should not work alone. I can guess where Alistair is at the moment and he would be relatively simple to contact.”
“If the killer was ever human, it was a long time ago.” Bel finally looked away, perhaps studying the room or watching one person in particular. “There are already whispers that it is a Realm-dweller. That humans are being lured in and tossed back out when the game has ended. If itisa game.” Bel smiled for a moment, odd and mean and out-of-place. “Luring humans in, that is nothing. Most don’t even have to be called. They go, willingly, more than many here would be comfortable admitting to. Some stay there and are happy. Some stay and are not, because the Realm cannot change what they are. So they lure, and they trap, and they do things that good and kind people in either place do not like to imagine.” Bel focused on Nicodemus again. Nicodemus realized his lips were parted and closed his mouth, but this time, Bel did not let him look away. “They do not usually deliver corpses back to us. It has the feel of a game to me, although I cannot guess the intelligence behind it. Is it a dog leaving us a toy because it wants to play? Or is it a valentine to bring the right sort of monster to it?”
“The right sort of monster?” Nicodemus heard himself echo faintly.
Bel directed his gaze back to the rest of the room. His small grin held a hint of teeth. Then his expression was smooth again, blank and watchful.
“You use too much honey,” Nicodemus added that in the same distant voice as before, then shut his eyes in mortification. “I mean, that is, just because you are peculiari does not mean you are what people say they are—weare.”
“It does not,” Bel agreed mildly.
Nicodemus opened his eyes. “This is an investigation that the State Bureau should be handling. Not you. Not alone. Especially if these poor people are…are valentines.” He reached for the beer and this time, Bel did not stop him. Nicodemus had a large swallow, grimacing all the way and refusing to acknowledge Bel’s attention while he did.
