“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t have a name.” His smile flickered, needle-sharp teeth showing for an instant. “But I did find something else.”
Nita let curiosity pull her forward. “What?”
“Your father’s murder case has been classified by INHUP. Only the highest level can access information on it.”
Nita frowned. “Why would they classify it?”
“Because there’s something sensitive in there. Something important, or connected to something important.” Adair shrugged. “It could be your father, his killer, the motive, even the place where it happened. Without having access to the file, there’s no way to know.” His eyes were alight. “It’s very intriguing.”
What in the world about her father’s murder could be classified? Had they found out what he did? No, if that were the case, Quispe would have had some very different questions for Nita when she went to INHUP. Likely, it was related to his killer, who mysteriously wasn’t publicized on the list.
“Can you get access to the file?” Nita asked.
“I don’t have that kind of pull. We’d need to be talking to the director of INHUP for that.”
Nita sighed. Stalled again. Nothing was going right.
“I believe you owe me a username now.”
“Why? You didn’t get anything. I don’t have anything but more questions.”
He considered her for a long moment and then nodded, just once. “I’ll keep looking.”
She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Thanks.”
They were both quiet, the silence only broken by the soft clink as Adair brushed past an old tea set and the faint hum of a fan somewhere in the building.
Finally, Adair asked, “Where’s Kovit?”
Nita swallowed, hating the sudden pain that bloomed in her chest. “He went back to the Family.”
Adair’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
Nita looked away. “They were blackmailing him. He didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. It’s just that sometimes one choice is worse than another,” Adair murmured. He looked at her with narrowed eyes that flickered between swamp green and yellow. “But I’m surprised he left you.”
Nita shrugged, but didn’t respond.
“Trouble in paradise?” A thin, crafty smile curled Adair’s features. “Perhaps having to do with the body I got earlier today. It had clearly been . . . appreciated.”
Nita flinched.
“Ah.” Adair leaned forward over the counter. “I thought so. Don’t like Kovit’s more extreme tendencies, do you?”
“I don’t think many people do.”
“No, I imagine not.” Adair put his chin in his hand. “And yet he still chooses that, despite how it isolates him.”
“He can’t choose to not eat.”
“But he could choose how.”
Nita bowed her head. She’d thought that many times before too. “I know.”
Adair tapped a finger on his counter. “Have you ever thought about how Kovit would behave if zannies weren’t on the Dangerous Unnaturals List?”
Nita blinked. “Not really.”
“How do you think his behavior would change?”
“I have no idea.”
Kovit’s whole life had been shaped by that list. His mother had been killed for it, he’d run away to the mafia to hide from it. Kovit wouldn’t be Kovit without it.
“You know what I think?” Adair steepled his fingers. “I think Kovit wouldn’t ever have hurt anyone if that list didn’t exist.”
Nita frowned. “He’s a zannie. It’s literally his biological imperative to hurt people.”
“It’s also my biological imperative to drown people and eat them, but here you are, not underwater or eaten.” Adair rolled his eyes. “And it’s a human biological imperative to reproduce, but you sure don’t look pregnant to me.”
“Of course not!” Nita nearly gagged in revulsion, but she saw his point.
“The thing I’ve always noticed about Kovit is that he’s a bit of a fatalist.” Adair continued. “See, there’s no point in trying when there’s no chance of success. Why try to be a good person when you’ll be shot on sight anyway? Why try not to hurt people you don’t know when they’d kill you if the places were reversed?”
She’d never really thought about it that way. Kovit had lived with a sword at his throat his whole life, and no matter what he did, good or bad, that would never change.
“Kovit’s been prejudged.” Adair’s voice was soft. “He’s been found evil. And if you tell someone they’re bad long enough, they’ll believe it. Especially children.”
Nita frowned, remembering her earlier conversation with Kovit. “You’re trying to excuse Kovit’s actions by his upbringing?”
Adair considered her. He seemed to reach some sort of decision, and he came out from behind the counter and gestured to the dining table. “Sit.”
Nita sat, nearly knocking over a headless Greek statue in the process.
“Tell me, Nita.” Adair sat across from her, his pale skin almost glowing in the semidarkness. “Who benefits from the Dangerous Unnaturals List?”
Nita blinked. “People. Humans. Everyone who doesn’t die because a unicorn is on the hunt for a soul or a kappa is hungry for some organ juices. The list saves lives. That’s why it exists.”
“And people like Kovit?”
Nita was silent. Adair had made that point already.
“Let me ask you something.” Adair’s voice was low and soft. “Would you want a zannie as your doctor?”
“No!” Nita jerked away. “Of course not!”
“Why not?”
“They’d be more likely to make the pain worse for their own pleasure than heal it.”
“Is that so?” Adair smiled. “But they can sense your pain. They know exactly where and how it hurts. They’ve felt thousands of pains and have a vast swath of data to compare it to. Do you think their diagnosis would be better?”
Nita hesitated, then nodded. “Maybe.”
“And their blood is one of the strongest painkillers in the world. The black market is full of people with chronic pain paying through the nose for a jar of zannie blood to make into cream for their pains.” Adair raised an eyebrow. “So a doctor who could immediately diagnose your pain and fix it. I don’t know, sounds pretty ideal to me.”
Nita considered. She’d never thought about it that way before. Now that she was thinking about it, zannies would probably make excellent doctors.
If they chose.
“But they wouldn’t.” Nita blinked up at Adair. “Zannies like to make their own pain. They’d hurt their patients.”
“So you’re saying the entire species is born psychopathic? Not a single one would consider getting their pain from the hospital without hurting someone?”
Put that way, it seemed far-fetched.
Nita’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really trying to say?”
Adair leaned back. “I’ll rephrase my earlier question: Who profits from the Dangerous Unnaturals List?”