Which was just about the coolest thing Lasciel'd ever done for me. Don't get me wrong; the survival-oriented things were super - but this was playing guitar. She had helped me to create something of beauty, and it satisfied an urge in me so deep-set and vital that I had never really realized what it was. Somehow, I knew without a hint of a doubt that I would never be able to play that well on my own. Ever again.
Could evil, true capital-E Evil, do such a thing? Help create something whole and lovely and precious?
Careful, Harry. Careful.
"This isn't helping either of us," I said quietly. "Thank you, but I'm learning it myself. I'll get there on my own." I set the guitar down on its little stand. "Besides, there's work to be done."
She nodded once. "Very well. This is regarding Thomas's apartment and its contents?"
"Yes," I said. "Can you show them to me?"
Lasciel lifted a hand, and the wall opposite the fireplace changed.
Technically, it hadn't actually changed, but Lasciel, who existed only as an entity of thought hanging around in my head, was able to create illusions of startling, even daunting clarity, even if I was the only one who could perceive them. She could sense the physical world through me - and she carried aeons of knowledge and experience. Her memory and eye for detail were almost entirely flawless.
So she created the illusion of the wall of Thomas's war room and put it over my own wall. It was even lit the same way as in my brother's apartment, every detail, I knew, entirely faithful to what had seen earlier that night.
I padded over to the wall and started checking it out more thoroughly. My brother's handwriting was all but unreadable, which made the notes he'd scribbled of dubious value in terms of actually enlightening me as to what was going on.
"My host - " Lasciel began.
I held up a hand for silence. "Not yet. Let me look at it unprejudiced first. Then you tell me what you think."
"As you wish."
I went over the stuff there for an hour or so, frowning. I had to go check a calendar a couple of times. I got out a notebook and scribbled things down as I worked them out. "All right," I said quietly, settling back down on the sofa. "Thomas was following several people. The dead women and at least a dozen more, in different parts of the city. He had a running surveillance on them. I think he probably hired a private detective or two to cover some of the observation - keeping tabs on where people were going, figuring out the recurring events in their schedules." I held up the notebook. "These are the names of the folks he was" - I shrugged - "stalking, I suppose. My guess is that the other people on this list are among the missing folk the ladies of the Ordo Lebes told us about."
"Think you Thomas preyed upon them?" Lasciel asked.
I started to deny it, instantly and firmly, but stopped.
Reason. Judgment. Rational thought.
"He could have," I said quietly. "But my instincts say it isn't him."
"Why would it not be?" Lasciel asked me. "Upon what do you base your reasoning?"
"Upon Thomas," I said. "It isn't him. To engage in wholesaled murder and abduction? No way. Maybe he fell off the incubus wagon, sure, but he wouldn't inflict any more harm than he had to. it isn't his way."
"Not his way by choice," Lasciel said. "Though I feel I must point out that - "
I cut her off, waving a hand. "I know. His sister could have gotten involved. She already ate Lord Raith's free will. She could have monkeyed around with Thomas's mind, too. And if not Lara, then there are plenty of others who might have done it. Thomas could be doing these things against his will. Hell, he might not even remember he's doing them."
"Or he might be acting of his own volition. He has another point of weakness," Lasciel said.
"Eh?"
"Lara Raith holds Justine."
A point I hadn't yet considered. Justine was my brother's... well, I don't know if there's a word for what she was to him. But he loved her, and she him. It wasn't their fault that she was slightly insane and he was a life force-devouring creature of the night.
They'd been willing to give up their lives for each other in the midst of a crisis, and the love confirmed by doing so had rendered Justine deadly to my brother, poisonous to him. Love is like that to the White Court, an intolerable agony to them, the way holy water is to other breeds. Someone touched by pure and honest love cannot be fed upon - which had more or less put an end to Thomas's ability to be near Justine.
It was probably just as well. That last time they'd been together had all but killed Justine. The last time I'd seen her, she'd been a wasted, frail, white-haired thing barely capable of stringing sentences together. It had torn my brother apart to see what he had done to her. To my knowledge he hadn't even tried to be a part of her life again. I couldn't blame him.
Lara watched over Justine now, though she could not feed upon the girl any more than Thomas could.
But Lara could cut her throat, if it came to that.
My brother might very well be capable of some unpleasant things in the interests of protecting Justine. Strike that. He was capable of anything where the girl was concerned.
Means. Motive. Opportunity. The equation of murder was balanced.
I looked back at the illusory wall, where the pictures, maps, and notes grouped together in a broad band near the top, then descended into fewer notes on the next strip down, and so on, forming a vague V-shape. At the top of the V rested a single, square yellow sticky note.
That note read, in a heavy hand, Ordo Lebes? Find them.
"Dammit, Thomas," I murmured quietly. I addressed Lasciel. "Get rid of it."
Lasciel nodded and the illusion disappeared. "There is something else you should know, my host."
I eyed her. "What's that?"
"It may concern your safety and the course of your investigation. May I show you?"
The word no came strongly to mind, but I was already in for a penny, so to speak. Lasciel's wealth of intelligence and experience made her an extremely capable adviser. "Briefly."
She nodded, rose, and suddenly I was standing in Anna Ash's apartment, as I had been that afternoon.
"My host," Lasciel said, "Remember you how many women you observed entering the building?"
I frowned. "Sure. As many as half a dozen had the right look, though anyone who arrived before Murphy and I got there could have already been inside."
"Precisely," Lasciel said. "Here."
She waved a hand, and an image of me appeared in the apartment's entry, Murphy at my side.