Page 9 of Villains Never Die

“You suck at talking on the phone,” Rook continued. His voice laid over that image and I couldn’t bring myself to hang up. This was what I got for sleeping for once—dreams of his lips and the inability to cut off his voice. “You know you’re supposed to talk back, right?”

“It’s two in the morning,” I deadpanned.

“You don’t seem like someone who sleeps a lot.”

“Well, I was asleep.” I glanced at my laptop as I paced by the bed again, and I couldn’t even remember how far I got withProject Mori last night. Likely not very far. I was hitting too many dead ends.

“It was urgent.”

“Urgent?” I scoffed. “You needed to call to taunt me in the middle of the night?”

I could hear the grin on his smug face. “Not really, but that part is kind of fun.”

“I swear, the next time I see you—”

“What?” I heard the squeak of what must be a very rickety chair as he leaned back in it. “You’ll kiss me again?”

My skin grew hot, anger flooding my body. “I am going to hang up in five seconds. Five, four—”

“There was another murder,” he said. I paused, and I didn’t quite know why. Murder meant much less to me than the average person. Gray had murdered someone two days ago at my request. There were murders on the news every few nights. It was a large city. People died.

“You will have to be more specific. That isn’t news in our world, Rook.” I had no doubt Rook had spilled blood too. Otherwise, he never would have gained the foothold he had in Ashbruck.

He sighed, exasperation leaking through the phone. “A magician. Fuck, aren’t you supposed to know everything? Hands cut off. Tongue cut out. What the fuck do you even do all day in that pretty penthouse?”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I don’t. You just seem like someone who lives in a penthouse. Flashy. Rich. Annoying. Focus, man. Murder. Magician. Mangled body.”

I vaguely remembered Gray mentioning something about a murder a few weeks ago, but I sighed again. “It sounds like something that is not my problem.”

“Even if it were the Council representative?”

I stopped pacing. “Blackwell’s dead?”

“Just happened,” Rook said. “The police don’t know, but the Council has people investigating it right now. I thought you’d want to know.”

Right now? But he’d been calling all week, assuming it was the same unknown number. “What were you bothering me about before?”

“Oh, the other times I called? You’re rude as hell, by the way. Answer your phone.”

“I don’t answer if it’s not important.” I swallowed once, not sure why I asked, “Was it important?”

Of course it wasn’t. He was just trying to get in my head, some kind of mental warfare and—

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.”

I ignored that and the goosebumps it raised all over my skin. No, that was the cold in my bedroom. Did I leave a window open?

I mentally cataloged why someone would chop up a magician’s body like that. Magic came in several forms—potions, spelled objects—but most magic required hands to direct it, and sometimes it was verbal. No hands, no tongue, no magic.

“Was there a message? On the body, I mean. Last time there was a message.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should go find out.”

“Do you have an address for this murder?” I asked.

“Between Broadway and Blue, down by the river.” Bold. That wasn’t the seedy part of town I’d expect a body to turn up in. Bodies in the river tended to wash up with trash.