arboreal_priestess | Gingerbread Pudding, Verity's Baltimore, Sunday Morning

JGOB was good, but Verity had woken up with a craving for frosted Madhura-baked gingerbread, even though it meant heading all the way into Baltimore for breakfast. Still, the chance to catch up with Piyusha, maybe convince her to head out of town until the snake cult that was chasing virgins was stopped, and score some delicious gingerbread was too much temptation to bear, so after her morning shower, Verity headed for the Causeway and the city beyond.

It took her the better part of an hour to reach the small bakery and she was very surprised to find it closed when she arrived. According to the hours in the window, Gingerbread Pudding was open from seven AM to nine PM every day. According to her watch, it was almost ten. So why were the doors still locked?

She rapped her knuckles briskly against the café door. No one came to let her in. She waited a few minutes before rapping again, harder this time.

The door creaked slowly open, revealing the narrow, anxious face of a man with a pronounced family resemblance to Piyusha. They had the same dark hair, and his features were practically a masculine version of hers. "Yes?" he asked suspiciously. The door creaked a bit farther open, letting Verity catch the sweet smell of honey and fresh ginger wafting from his skin. "I'm sorry. We're closed."

"Hi," Verity said, offering him the sweetest smile she could muster. "You must be one of Piyusha's brothers. I'm Verity. I realize you're probably busy, but this will only take a few minutes, and I really need to talk to her. Is there any way you could get her for me?"

The man’s expression froze. "Verity Price?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Piyusha may have mentioned that I dropped by--?"

"Yes, she did," he said, expression still not wavering. Opening the door fully, he stepped to one side and asked, "Won't you come inside?"

"Thanks." Verity stepped into the darkened café, flashing him another smile as she went. He didn't return it.

As soon as she was past the threshold an arm reached out from the space behind the door, locking itself around her neck and hauling her backward. It was surprising enough that Verity didn't fight immediately. She felt herself pressed against the chest of a second, shorter man. He smelled less like honey, and more like a mixture of cinnamon and ginger. That was something. At least if this turned into a serious fight, she'd know where to aim her kicks—even if she couldn't see to tell them apart, she'd be able to smell the difference.

The door swung shut. "Now," said the man who'd let her inside in the first place. "You're going to tell us what you've done with our sister."

Verity	The Madhura with his arm hooked around her neck tightened it slightly, not quite choking her, but definitely making it a bit harder to breathe. Verity wasn't that worried. He was strong enough to be an inconvenience. That didn't mean he had the training necessary to hold onto her once she decided she was done being held. Strength was cheap. Technique was what really counted. Keeping her chin up and her voice calm, she said, "I haven't done anything with Piyusha. Is there a reason you’re assuming I did?"
Rochak	"Hold her, Sunil," commanded the first man. Turning, he locked the door before walking toward the human and his brother. "You're Covenant. Why should we assume anyone else was responsible?"
Verity	Okay, that bothered her a whole lot more than the arm around her neck, truth be told. "Terribly sorry to disappoint you but, not only am I not responsible for Piyusha going wherever it is she's gone, I'm not Covenant. I'm a Price." It had been five generations, people! Or at least three!
Sunil	"There's no such thing," said the now-identified Sunil, breath hot against Verity's ear. "They're a lie you Covenant bastards spread to make us think that some of you can be trusted. You fooled our sister. You won't fool us. We're nowhere so gullible."
Verity	Yeah, she was definitely starting to get annoyed. Verity focused on the man in front of her. Much as she wanted to start yelling at both of them--no one called her Covenant and got away with it, especially when there was a real Covenant agent around--she needed to be reasonable. For as long as she could, anyway. "If you want to take my wallet out and check my driver's license, I promise you, it'll tell you that my name is Verity Price. And no woman has ever voluntarily carried fake ID with a picture that ugly." Not actually true. She had several fake IDs, courtesy of her cousin Artie, with that same picture on it, just so she could use that same line. "Now what happened to Piyusha?"
Rochak	"That's what you're going to tell us," snapped the man in front of her, jabbing a finger at Verity's chest. He didn't quite make contact.
Verity	Raising her eyebrows, Verity asked, "Is that the best you can do? Threaten to poke me? Wow, do you not have any talent for interrogation." She reached up with both hands--which neither of them seemed to have thought might need to be pinned--and grabbed Sunil's arm, twisting hard. He yelled. She yanked down. In a matter of seconds, Verity was free, and both Madhura were staring at her like she'd suddenly demonstrated the ability to walk through walls. "I'm really not in the mood for games, and I have way bigger problems than the two of you," she said sternly, producing a throwing knife from inside her shirt and holding it at a defensive angle in front of herself. It's normally a bad idea to be the first one to draw a weapon, but they had Verity outnumbered, and she needed to even the playing field a bit. "Does one of you want to tell me what you think I did, so we can clear this up, or do you just want to piss me off?"
Rochak	"Our sister came home telling fairy tales about a Price woman and her friend from the Covenant.” He glared. "Twelve hours later, she was gone. Do you really think we wouldn't put the pieces together?"
Sunil	"Rochak, I think she's serious," said Sunil, frowning as he studied Verity's expression. "No one looks that clueless when they’re lying."
Verity	"Hey!" Verity yelped. "I'm blonde, but that doesn't make me a dumb blonde." She paused. "But I really am that clueless, at least right now. You’re telling me that Piyusha is actually gone? As in, missing, disappeared like the others, didn't just cut out to see her boyfriend gone?"
Sunil	"Yes," said Sunil, gravely. "She went out for groceries and she didn't come back. We tried calling her phone after an hour had passed. She didn't answer. We were concerned, and started looking for her. She...there were signs of a struggle."
Verity	"Blood?" Verity guessed. He nodded. "Are you sure it was hers? I mean, how could you tell?"
Sunil	Sunil turned to Rochak, looking vindicated. "See? She's serious. This is not the one who hurt our sister."
Rochak	"Why does this please you? It means we still have no idea who did." Rochak scowled at his brother before looking at Verity and grinding out, "My apologies for the accusation. You must see why you would be a reasonable suspect."
Verity	"I do, but does someone want to tell me why you’re suddenly willing to believe me?" Verity lowered her throwing knife, but didn't put it away. "Blood is blood, usually." A moment and then realization dawned. "Unless it's not."
Rochak	"Our blood is not precisely like yours," Rochak admitted, reluctantly.
Verity	"Really?" Verity asked, with what must have seemed like a bit too much enthusiasm. They both gave her uneasy looks. She sighed. "I'm not going to cut you open to see what your interesting inside bits look like. I'm just curious."
Rochak	Rochak was still visibly uncomfortable. "Still, it is something we'd rather not discuss."
Verity	"Have it your way." Verity would just have to let her dad know that the database entries on the Madhura needed to be updated to reflect undocumented physiological oddities. That was the trouble with not dissecting everything you meet: so much remained a mystery. On the plus side, you could look at yourself in the mirror at night, so it all evened out. "What time did she disappear?"
Sunil	"She left for the store a little before ten o'clock last night," said Sunil. "We became concerned when she didn't come home or call by eleven."
Verity	Verity breathed out a silent sigh of relief. Dominic hadn't been responsible. After her chat with Candy, she'd caught up with Dominic to give him the head's up about servitors. They'd talked at the coffee shop, and he hadn't left until sometime after eleven-thirty. Piyusha probably wouldn't have shared her relief--whether she'd been taken by the Covenant or taken by crazy people who wanted to sacrifice her to a sleeping dragon, she’d still been taken--but at least Verity hadn't led death to her front door. Not directly. Shit. If she warned Piyusha's brothers about Dominic, they might decide that she really had been responsible for Piyusha's disappearance. If she didn't, and he came back here on his own, they'd be completely unprepared. Either way, she was taking a risk. Only one of those risks stood a chance of leading her to the dragon. If she didn't find the dragon before Dominic did, an entire species might go extinct. Mustering the most sincere 'I'm here to help' expression she could, Verity asked, "Can you show me where you found the blood?"
Sunil	Sunil and Rochak exchanged a look and then led Verity out the back door of the café and down the street to a tiny hole-in-the-wall bodega. There was a faded sign propped in the window, advertising a two-for-one sale on canned tomatoes, and a milk crate of sad-looking apples was doing double duty as a doorstop. "Here," said Sunil, indicating a reddish smear on the wall next to the bodega's window. It looked more like thickened sap than blood. It smelled overpoweringly sweet, like pine resin mixed with molasses, with only the slightest hint of copper to confirm the mammalian origins of the one who'd lost it.
Rochak	"We knew it was dangerous to let her go out alone, but she said she felt perfectly safe; she said nothing would touch her with a Price this close." The accusation in Rochak’s eyes was terrible. "I suppose she was incorrect."
Verity	Verity couldn't meet his eyes for long, focusing her attention on the bloodstain instead, trying to pretend she knew anything about blood splatter analysis that hadn't been learned from watching TV. Damn, she wished Liam were here. "Guess so," she mumbled. Glancing to Sunil, she asked, "Did she make it into the bodega?"
Sunil	He nodded. "The clerk said that she had been in and out right around ten. That she was in good spirits."
Verity	Verity wasn't going to mention the fact that the clerk might have been the last one to speak to Piyusha before she was grabbed, hauled underground, and sacrificed to a giant sleeping lizard that really couldn't have cared less. "So we have a window on when she went missing. That’s something at least." She straightened, moving back until she could no longer smell the cloyingly sugary scent of Piyusha's blood. "Thank you for showing me this. I'll look for her, and if I find anything--" "You won't," said Rochak, quietly. "Maybe not, but you'll still be the first to know." She shrugged. "It's all I can offer. Stay together. If you have any other sisters, don't let them go to the store by themselves."
Rochak	"You'll really look for her?" asked Sunil. Verity nodded. "I really will." "How do we know that we can trust you?" asked Rochak.
Verity	"You don't. But right now, I think I'm about the best chance your sister's got." All three of them looked at the smear on the wall. No one said anything after that. No one really needed to.