“She has to ask everyone,” Kit says. “Even me.”
He lets out a resigned sigh. “I was herding the goats.”
I shift my gaze from him to Kit, who turns into one of the puckish creatures and bleats.
Colton gives her a chiding look. “Goats keep the shrubs around the mountain at bay, give the monks a source of milk and cheese, and provide everyone with occasional mutton.”
“Milk, cheese, mutton—another chance for the banana rant,” Felix murmurs.
If I deigned to acknowledge his existence, I’d tell him that free-roaming goat products feel way safer to me than germ-infested industrial farm food, at least as far as Salmonella and E. coli go.
“What I really need are some details,” I tell Colton. “Like what the sky was like or in what formation the goats stood—anything that made that afternoon memorable.”
“Sure.” He tells me that the day was foggy, and that a bunch of mushrooms had sprouted on the nearby hill. As he keeps going, I take notes on my phone.
“Thank you,” I say when he’s done. “That’s all we needed.”
“You sure you don’t want to taste—”
“We shouldn’t keep Nina waiting. Maybe some other time.”
Kit looks at the oven longingly. I carefully elbow her. She turns into a monkey—no doubt a dig at my banana eating—and scampers out of the giant’s lair with me literally on her tail. She leads me through more corridors to a door as big as the one that led to Colton’s abode. Becoming herself again, she presses the doorbell.
A bloodcurdling wolf howl emanates from behind the door.
Chapter Seventeen
“I know,” Kit says when she sees how white I’ve turned. “Eduardo’s door chime takes getting used to.”
“That was a chime?” Felix whispers. “It sounded like someone getting murdered.”
The door opens on a tall, shaggy-haired man with intent lupine eyes. He also looks like Kit’s impersonation of him—and like Donkey Kong, as Felix mentioned, only dressed in a bespoke suit.
“I was just on my way out,” he growls. “What’s this about?”
The guy is so intense I can’t help but take a step back. “Do you have a minute? I’m interviewing everyone for the investigation.”
He looks at his Jaeger-LeCoultre watch. “You have two minutes.”
“Where were you when Gemma died?” I blurt. “Tell me in as much detail as you can.”
His eyes narrow. “I was hunting with my pack. It was foggy. We took down a buck with a broken antler. Is that detailed enough?”
“It is, thank—”
“Then get out of my way.” He moves forward.
“Just one second,” Kit says, staying put. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
He stares at Kit the way The Big Bad Wolf must’ve looked at Little Red Riding Hood. I gulp. Werewolves on Gomorrah are notorious for their bad temper, and Eduardo doesn’t strike me as a particularly zen member of his kind.
Without blinking an eye, Kit shifts into an orc.
“Pack business,” he growls. “Now move.”
“He’s the alpha of said pack,” Felix whispers more quietly than usual. “I’d obey.”
I pointedly pull on Kit’s sleeve. “Again, thanks. Kit, we have more people to interview.”
“Have fun.” Orc Kit turns back into herself and steps leisurely out of his way.
The next door Kit leads me to is no more than a large slab of rock. I see no handle or hinges. To the side on the wall is a doorbell with a camera, which Kit presses.
“Yes?” calls the melodic voice Kit simulated earlier. “What do you want?”
“Bailey is here to interview you,” Kit says. “It’s to help with the investigation. I’m sure you don’t mind.”
In reply, the giant stone slides up.
Nina looks just as Kit showed me earlier, only dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans. She’s gesturing at the stone slab with her hand, a look of concentration on her striking face.
Of course—she opened the door using telekinesis.
“Come in.” She waves us in with her free hand.
Kit waltzes in, but I hesitate as Pom turns black on my wrist. If Nina stops holding up that rock with her power, whoever is under it at the time will turn into a pancake.
Nina frowns. “Come on. I won’t harm you.”
Puck. If she didn’t want to squish me before, she might after this perceived slight. “I didn’t mean to imply you’d do it on purpose. It’s just such a big stone, and—”
“If I wanted to kill you, I could make it fly at you.” The stone rises another foot off the floor, then starts hovering in my direction.
“Fine.” I hurry through the doorway. “Thanks for not dropping it.”
Not dignifying that with a reply, Nina lowers the slab into place and leads us into her living room, where she gestures for us to sit on what looks like an IKEA futon. In general, her décor appears to be of minimalist persuasion, with a sort of New Age vibe.
“A drink?” A bottle of wine rises from the bar on its own and uncorks itself.
I shake my head. “Not on duty.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Kit says.
A glass flies up from the nearby table, the bottle pours wine into it in the air, and the glass glides into Kit’s outstretched hand.
“Not just raw power but fine control,” Felix mutters. “Impressive.”
“How can I help?” Nina asks.
“Can you tell us what you were doing when Gemma was killed?” I ask. “It happened—”
“I know when,” she says, her expression darkening. “Does this mean I’m a suspect?”
“Don’t piss her off,” Felix whispers. “She could go Darth Vader on your ass and choke you with her power.”
“Everyone on the Council is a suspect,” I say carefully, not loving the picture Felix paints. “I’m merely starting with whoever had the ability to easily commit the last crime, but—”
“She asked me the same thing.” Kit’s form flows into Colton, then Eduardo. “Others as well, and that’s just so far.”
Nina’s face clears, and she peers at me curiously. “You’re a dreamwalker, right? Just like Leal?”
“We have the same power, yes, though I’m not sure how I measure up to his abilities.”
She pours herself a glass of wine in the air and sips it thoughtfully.
Could she be the culprit, after all? She’s not answering my question, and overall looks like she’s hiding something.
“So,” I prompt cautiously, “when Gemma—”
“I was doing yoga,” she says abruptly.
Huh. I suppose that goes with the New Age vibe. “Anything specific you recall about that session?”
“This is so you can verify in my dreams if I’m telling the truth, right?”
“Exactly. The more details, the easier my job.”
“I was in this room.” She makes a gesture that causes all the furniture to float up several feet, clearing the floor—as she presumably would do for yoga practice. “I started with child’s pose, then flowed into downward-facing dog.” She throws more yoga poses at me, and I note each one in my phone. “At the end, I always do a relaxing corpse pose. I’d never reflected on how macabre that sounds until saying it just now—as a murder suspect,” she adds, fiddling with the hoop in her nostril.