Page 83 of Tracking Snow

Sure enough, Wrecking Ball walks in a couple minutes later. He’d been one of the first ones to attack at Dry Dock. But as Two pointed out, throwing insults about one’s mama does tend to escalate things, which is why tonight is about the sneakier route. Maybe I can get more info just by listening ninja style.

Four shifts beside me for the fourth time in a minute. He's picking flakes of rust off the railing and flicking them into the dark, his jaw working, one knee bouncing against the iron.

Thankfully, they left the door open so the microphone inside carries every word to us.

A woman acts as the welcome committee. Everyone needs to fill out the sign-in sheet, and there is a basket for the fund to support Queenie Fairchild in her hour of need.

Though I doubt Fairchild needs their pennies for her medical bills, it goes to show how committed they are to getting the woman elected.

The speaker graciously thanks a couple of people for the casseroles and cookies people can help themselves to at the back by the coffee.

"This is pointless," Four whispers, his eyes flashing with frustration. "Nobody in that room knows anything. They're talking about casseroles."

"Cool your jets, it just got started. I’m sure evil doing is third or fourth on their agenda after the school carnival and saving puppies to throw the Feds off. Then it’s straight on to bigotry, hate crimes, and where the hell they’ve taken my friends."

He doesn't answer. The railing under his hand has started to make a small ticking sound, like a radiator waking up.

Then a metal chair scrapes loudly below, and a deep voice I'd know anywhere says, "Yeah, I got something."

My whole body goes still. I know that voice. Wrecking Ball.

"Most of you know I was attacked and injured in my attempt to defend this neighborhood," he says. "Lilah and I both suffered wounds from the attack, as well as Jimi."

I gasp. "That gigantic dickhead! They attacked us. He’s trying to sound all noble."

"We thank you, Clarence, for all you’ve done to keep our city safe," the woman running the meeting says. "And we bow our heads in remembrance of our fallen HAM member, Jimi Bullock, who was brutally murdered in his attempt to keep our streets safe as well. While there wasn’t any evidence of magic used in the killing, it was a messy brutal struggle by the end of his own kitchen knife."

What? Someone killed a HAM member? Dirt-face?

I feel rather than see Four stiffen next to me.

I twist to look at him, but suddenly he is very focused on that propped open door.

And I just know.

"Did you⁠—"

"No," Four says with force.

A beat passes between us.

"Who did it, Four?"

The man next to me reeks of guilt so much it radiates off him in waves.

"Four," I press.

"Two did it, okay? He knew that creep—Jimi, was it? He was going to come back for you and probably us, so he took care of it."

Holy faefucks. Two committed murder to protect me? My head reels, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

"We suspect it was done by the girl who attacked us." This time, it’s Lilah who speaks. Still, I stare at Four in a daze. "The same one who crashed the Dry Dock bar."

"It was a Black girl in her twenties with white hair and blue eyes, and while she looks magic, she’s human. She was with one of those mages, but the way Jimi went..." Lilah stops speaking as if choked up. And maybe she really is, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for her when she’s smack talking me.

"The kind of sloppy murder spree fits her style," Wrecking Ball, or rather Clarence, finishes for her.

"She’s human?" someone yells out.