She tsked. “Your knowledge of our great country is shocking.”
“Maybe if I ever do get to your age, I’ll know all the little places. In the meantime, where the hell is it?”
She laughed. “Over near Stockton-On-Tees.”
Which didn’t make me any wiser, but I kept that to myself. “How come he was so hard to find?”
“He was adopted as a babe—his legal surname is now Martin.”
“Any record of his real parents?”
“According to the hospital records Jackie found, his mother’s name was Hanna Okoro. No mention of a father. The mother disappeared from the hospital the day after he was born.”
“I take it she was never seen again?”
“No.”
Not a good sign. “Are there any theories as to why?”
“The retired nurse Jackie tracked down said it was obvious the girl had undergone major trauma.”
“As in mugged? Or raped?”
“Unclear. But she said the girl was covered in old scars, had the look of a frightened animal, and spoke gibberish. That’s the only reason the nurse remembered her. She also said she wasn’t entirely surprised when the girl disappeared.”
“I gather the security cams were checked at the time?”
“Yes. It appeared she was dragged away by two invisible men. Or maybe even women. It’s hard to guess gender when they’re invisible.”
Invisibility spells wouldn’t hide the stink that came with demons, nor the click of steel-clad elf claws on floors, and that meant her abductors were probably human. Or, more likely, half human. “I take it her family were contacted?”
“Eventually, yes, and that’s where it gets really interesting. They’re not only a previously unknown branch of the Okoro tree, but they claimed Hanna Okoro died in an accident ten years previously.”
“Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice was wont to say.”
“Indeed. I’ve asked Jackie to keep digging.” She glanced at her watch. “We’d better go. I’ll head down to pay the bill and meet you outside in ten minutes.”
I shifted shape, then grabbed my knives and flew out the window. While I waited for Mo, I drifted in lazy circles, enjoying the freedom of the skies and the ripple of wind through my feathers. Even on a cold, dull day like this, it was a glorious sensation.
Mo appeared below and strode down the pavement, no doubt looking for an empty side street before she took to the wing. While it was no secret the De Montfort line were shape-shifters, there were still some humans who got freaked out by the whole process. Which was weird, given the magic involved basically hid all the gory details of the shift. Thankfully, it also took care of the pain the process involved. I didn’t think many of us would be switching forms too often if it didn’t.
Once she’d joined me on wing, we flew on. By the time we got to Thornaby, it was drizzling. Jules’s house was a small two up, two down situated in a cul-de-sac close to a meandering river. The small front yard had been concreted over, and there was a blue Ford parked in front of the attached garage. I flew over the tiled roof to check out the backyard; it clearly hadn’t been mown in some time.
I swooped around and followed Mo past the trees lining the end of the cul-de-sac before landing beside her. Once I’d strapped on my knives, we climbed over a wire fence and walked to Jules’s house. The place was quiet; dust and dead bugs lined the windowsills on either side of the door, and spiders hung between the glass and the net curtains.
Mo pressed the doorbell. The chime echoed inside but drew no response. The door was locked.
“Maybe he’s out.”
“Maybe.” She stepped out from under the protection of the porch and peered up. “The curtains are drawn. It’s possible he’s asleep.”
There was something in her tone that had my eyebrows rising. “But you don’t think so?”
“No. My trouble antenna is quivering.”
And that was never a good thing. “Should we enter via the back door? We don’t need to be seen breaking in—”
“It’s hardly breaking in when the door is left open.” She pressed her fingers around the deadlock. Power surged, a brief flame that spoke of a power I’d not seen her use before. With a soft click, the door opened.
I gave her a long look. “And where did you learn to do that?”
“I once had a brief liaison with a king’s thief. He taught me more than a few tricks.”
Some of which weren’t magic based, if the smile twitching her lips was anything to go by. “Why would a king need a thief?”
“How else was he to uncover the court’s secrets? Courtiers weren’t exactly known for their honesty or their piety.”
I snorted and followed her inside. The small entrance hall held a coat stand under which sat a pair of well-worn brown boots. Beside it was a kitchen chair, and directly ahead a set of carpeted stairs. To our right lay what looked to be a sitting room.
The air smelled musty, suggesting it had been locked up for a while. But there was something else here, too, something I’d smelled before.
Death.
I swallowed. “Mo—”
“Yes.” Her voice was heavy. “You check this floor. I’ll go up.”
“Be careful.”
She smiled. “I don’t think what lies up there is a threat to either of us.”
While the smell suggested she was right, demons had been known to use the dead as lures. I shoved the thought away; if there were demons here, we would have sensed them by now.
And yet, a heartbeat of energy was now pulsing through Nex’s blade. There might not be demons here, but there was something—someone—connected to them in the near vicinity.
As she climbed the stairs, I went into the sitting room. It was small but neat, with one lonely-looking armchair positioned in front of a massive TV. There was a radiator beneath the window, but the chill in the air suggested the central heating hadn’t been switched on for a while. The kitchen was small—little more than a galley—with just enough room for a two-person table at the far end. Again, it was neat, with only a cup and plate sitting on the sink drainer. Jules, it seemed, lived a fairly solitary life.
I headed upstairs. There were three doors off the small landing. One was a bathroom, the other a box bedroom. Mo was in the third one.
“Did you find—” The rest of that sentence died on my lips as I entered the larger bedroom.
She had found the source of the smell.
It was a man.
An old man.
One who’d obviously been dead long enough for his stomach gases to release and his skin to discolor.
I wrinkled my nose and tried not to breathe too deeply. Even so, the smell was bad enough to have my stomach churning. “I’m guessing that’s Jules Okoro?”
She waved his wallet. “According to this, it is.”
“He’s not what I expected. I mean, he looks to be in his mid-seventies, and that, in turn, begs the question—how old was the nurse Jackie spoke to?”
“She’d been retired a few years, so at least late sixties.”
“Which makes her younger than him, and that’s impossible if she was working at the hospital when he was born. What’s his age according to his license?”