“Thirty-six.”
I blinked and looked at the figure on the bed again. “Either he had some sort of degenerative disease, or something else was going on.”
She dropped his wallet back onto his bedside table, then squatted beside his bed. I remained exactly where I was. Getting any closer might just have last night’s pizza making a grand reappearance. “Well, that right there could be part of the answer.”
“What right where?”
She motioned toward his head. “His ears have a very slight point.”
Which suggested he was a halfling—the offspring of a dark elf and a human. Elves, I’d recently learned, had a long history of stealing human women in an effort to refresh their own bloodlines. The resulting halflings were generally hermaphrodites, and while they didn’t inherit the dark elf ability for magic, they did gain their ability to manipulate the weak willed. Like Tris, perhaps.
“Why would his being a halfling explain his advanced age? The other halflings we’ve come across didn’t appear to have this problem.”
“Because they were half human.”
“What has that got to do with it?”
“There’s been plenty of conjecture over the years as to why few witches were ever taken by the elves, but it wasn’t until the discovery of a severely emaciated corpse outside a discarded Darkside gateway that we got a possible answer. There appears to be a gene incompatibility between our two races that results in multiple autoimmune diseases and premature aging. Whether it happens to all witch-elf offspring or only some is unknown.”
“Do you think it was a coincidence—a simple matter of opportunity—that a woman from a previously unknown branch of the Okoros was taken?”
“I doubt it. It’s pretty obvious someone out there knows a whole lot more about the lineage of the Okoros than we do.”
Someone who had the missing family bibles, perhaps? “But why would they even bother? They’d have to know a halfling would never be able to draw the sword.”
“They lose nothing in trying.” She nodded toward Jules. “The price for this poor soul was a short and painful existence, but who knows how many other siblings he has running around Darkside or even here? Siblings that perhaps aren’t as afflicted as he?”
“It still doesn’t alter the fact that Darkside can’t touch the sword.” It killed them if they tried—a fact we knew from a legendary battle that happened in the days before Uhtric closed the main gate. His horse had been cut from beneath him and in the fall, his sword had slipped from his grasp. The dark elf who’d tried to claim the blade had been instantly incinerated.
“Full elves, no. But half-breed witches able to trace their lineage back to Uhtric? That’s an unknown.” She made a frustrated sound. “It would, however, seem I’ve been very lax in my duty.”
I frowned. “I think if anyone is to blame for this mess, it’s the Blackbirds. They’re the protectors of King and Crown, after all, and they all but disappeared centuries ago.”
She grimaced. “That might be true, but I’m a mage. With Mryddin locked in his cave and Gwendydd in Europe, it falls to me to hinder Darkside developments as best I can.”
“Then maybe it’s time you dug Mryddin out of his cave. It’d certainly be handy to have an extra mage about if the main gate is opened.”
Her expression held a tinge of wistfulness. “As much as I’d love to, he’s a very stubborn old man. Unless and until he wishes to come out, there is nothing either Gwendydd or I can do to budge him.”
“So who was the woman who broke his heart and left him locked up and mourning in a cave?”
“Her name was Niniane, and she was his student. We did warn him that she was only after his power, but men in lust do tend to listen to the little head rather than the big.”
A smile twitched my lips. “So she bled him dry and then walked away?”
“Ran is a more apt description. He tended to be a bit ‘handsy.’”
That seemed to be a common theme amongst men of a certain age and generation, in my experience. “What happened to her after he locked himself away?”
“She attempted a spell beyond her capabilities. It consumed her.”
“Fate does have a way of biting the butts of wrongdoers.” I paused and studied Jules for a moment. “Do you think it possible that the person who drew the sword is one of his siblings?”
“Anything is possible, but I doubt it, if only because they wouldn’t have attacked you on King’s Island. It would have been more sensible not to draw attention to themselves that way.”
“I’m thinking Darkside and sensible don’t always go together.”
She laughed. “They may not see things the way we do, but their thought processes aren’t that different.”
On that, we would always disagree. “If Hanna Okoro was snatched from the hospital by her dark elf keepers, why would they leave Jules there? Surely that was a bit risky—”
“Not necessarily,” Mo cut in. “His ears aren’t pointed enough to attract attention.”
“But why not take him when they took his mother?”
“Invisible or not, it’s still much harder to get into a natal ward.” She shrugged. “Or maybe they simply did prenatal tests and knew he was flawed.”
“It’s kinda hard to imagine Darkside having hospitals and the like.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why? The only difference between our world and theirs is the fact that night is never-ending there.”
“I guess it comes from thinking demons to be little better than rabid animals.” I waved a hand toward Jules. “Do you think he died of natural causes?”
She reached out and lifted one eyelid. “His eyes are bloodshot, and there seems to be a faint stain of blue around his lips. Whether that’s part of whatever condition he had or he’s been smothered, I can’t say. I think we need to get the preternatural boys out here to investigate.”
The Preternatural Division was a secret section of the National Crime Agency, and had some of the strongest witches on their books as advisors to help investigate supernatural and magical crime. And, right now, that meant the death of anyone connected in any way to the Witch King and the sword.
“Have you got Jason’s number?” she added.
Jason Durant was the head honcho of the team who’d investigated both Tris’s and Gareth’s murders. He also happened to be a good friend of Luc’s. “No, but I could send a text to Luc.”
She pushed to her feet. “Do it. Then we’d better get back home.”
“You don’t want to look around first?”
“I doubt there’s much here to find, and we need to get back to Ainslyn.”
I pulled out my phone; it was already past ten. “We’re not going to get back there in time to meet the insurance assessor.”
“No, which is why I rang your brother before I left the Lodge and asked him to get over there.”
I grinned. “I’m sure he would have been absolutely thrilled to be woken at that hour.” Especially if he and the entertainment had been partying all night.
“He did sound a little miffed, but that’s not unusual these days.”