Death & Desire: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 2)

by Deborah Wilde

  I threw my hands over my head, bracing for death, with no angel in sight. At least I’d been right about that.

  Chapter 6

  A firm body rushed me, knocking me to the concrete and I blinked into the stormy blue of Levi’s unamused gaze.

  “You didn’t happen to try and kill me with your illusion magic?” I said. “Say in a grove in an indeterminate reality?”

  His body blanketed mine. I was safe. His hands felt so right curled up against my sides, holding me like I was something precious, and cars passed as I was caught between a road and a deliciously hard place.

  My breathing kicked up when Levi turned his head to whisper in my ear, “The day you push me to a non-negotiable act of homicide, I promise you’ll see my face.”

  It sounded like that day might come sooner rather than later.

  I shoved him off me. “Really? I always figured you for a knife in the dark kind of guy.”

  It was evening and I was back at my car. Judging from the fallen traffic cone, I’d exited the almond tree reality and come back to this one right in the middle of the street. If Levi hadn’t been there, hadn’t knocked me into the construction area–my whole body shuddered at the crushing memory of those headlights.

  Levi seized me by the collar. “What the fuck, Ash?”

  “Leave her alone. Can’t you see she’s shaking?” Priya knocked Levi’s hands off me, but from the tight grim line of her lips, it was only because she planned to kill me herself. Her green eyes flashed as she draped a blanket over my shoulders. “You’ve been missing for hours. Your phone was in your jacket so I tracked Moriarty, but you were gone.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Did you open the evidence box?

  “No.” She tugged free, flashing her pink-and-black lotus tattoo on the inside of her right wrist. It matched the pink tunic and leggings that she wore with a black swing coat. Gold rings with rosy tints glinted on her fingers.

  “Good. There’s a dangerous magic artifact in there.”

  “It’s still not locked up?” A vein pulsed in Levi’s throat.

  “Shoot me, I was kind of busy.” I stomped over to my car and popped the trunk. “There. Happy? The lock is keyed to my thumbprint and the box is bolted to the trunk. Plus the artifact is sealed inside a special container. It’s not a danger to anyone right now.” I tossed my filthy trench coat in the trunk, but my remaining clothes weren’t much better.

  The ground felt precariously like quicksand under my feet. I clutched the edge of the trunk, letting the sharp corner bite into my flesh. Once more, I was unsettled by a feeling of being watched, but the sidewalks were empty. I was getting paranoid.

  “What is it?” Levi said.

  I tsked him. “Client-P.I. confidentiality, you should know that by now, dude.”

  And you’re still on the suspect list.

  “I meant what’s wrong?” he said. “What happened? Where did you come from?”

  My legs gave way and I crashed on my ass onto the bumper. “Tests, leaps into the void, mysterious Evil Wankers.” I eyed him. “That part isn’t new.”

  “I’ve upgraded to mysterious? Be still my beating heart,” Levi said dryly.

  Priya elbowed him aside to check my eyes.

  “I don’t have a concussion,” I said.

  “You’re babbling. You should get checked out.”

  “No!” I calmed my voice. “I mean, no thank you. You know hospitals are a last resort. I just need time to process that bit at the end.”

  “Talking about it will help.” Levi peered into the trunk like he could X-ray vision the lock box. “Start with the artifact.”

  “That has nothing to do with any of this.” I slammed the trunk closed.

  “Start with it anyway.”

  “Quit running roughshod over my life. Are you poking into all the other Nefesh investigators’ cases or am I the only one with that privilege?”

  And does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m the only one who suspects you of attempted murder?

  Priya stood at my shoulder, a warrior in all-pink. “Good question.”

  I grinned at her. Best friends ruled.

  Levi wiped a smear of dirt off his suit, the same kind that was on my hands and must have come from the grove. He’d ruined a suit to protect me. “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep my community safe.”

  That’s what I was afraid of. Especially if Omar’s attack was precipitated by a perceived threat to Levi’s Nefesh.

  “Would there be any length you wouldn’t go to?” I growled. “Because I really don’t want a constant, very-high-profile shadow.”

  Levi shrugged. “If you don’t like it, tough.”

  I dug in my jeans pocket for my keys, which luckily were still there. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think that’s the entire story.”

  “What else would there be?” he said.

  With Omar, possibly something far more sinister. However, when it came to him making himself part of my inquiries on all things Jezebel, the answer was simple. “You’re bored and want to play Scooby Doo in my life because it’s way more fun than being House Head.”

  He looked visibly discombobulated for a hot ten seconds. It was the life goal I never knew I’d had. “You’re casting me as a dog in this delusion of yours?” he said.

  “Naw.” I opened my door. “You’re Shaggy.”

  Priya wrestled me for the keys, insisting that I was in no condition to drive.

  I pulled them away. “Priya, please. I’m hurt, but I’m not concussed. I’m cogent and it’s going to make me feel worse if I’m not in control.”

  She sighed and took the passenger seat. “Which of Scooby’s friends are you?”

  “I’m not in this cartoon. That’s Levi’s schtick.” I gave Moriarty my superstitious double pat and whispered, “Who’s a good boy?”

  The car started, but before I could pull away, Levi clambered into the back seat.

  “Did all you people take transit?” I checked the side and rearview mirrors, then signaled and merged into traffic. “Why are you here?”

  “Priya called me,” he said.

  “Gee, you didn’t invite my mother to complete the welcoming party?” I said to Pri.

  “Talia didn’t have security people who could look for you,” she said.

  My turn signal ticked twice before I came up with a response.

  “You did that?” I glanced quickly over my shoulder, addressing Levi.

  “The sooner you were found, the less trouble you could get into. I like things peaceful.”

  I snorted. “Even so, I appreciate that. Both of you.” The roadside workers had gone home, so I steered myself back into traffic. “But Levi, if you aren’t going to respect my boundaries, Priya is going to make your life a living hell.”

  Boundaries were important, especially while I was investigating him for attempted murder. Did he know that Omar was alive?

  I studied him in the rearview mirror. Levi appeared wrung-out and a bit annoyed, but not especially concerned about anything. Despite our history, at his core, I believed him a good man, but good men could be pushed to evil action.

  Priya had removed a tube of pink lip gloss out of her purse and pulled down the visor to reveal the mirror. “Why do I have to do the heavy lifting? Make his life hell yourself.”

  “Work with me here.”

  She tucked a strand of her jet black bob behind her ear and applied the gloss. “Isn’t threatening the dude foreplay between you two?”

  “Jesus, Pri,” I hissed, inadvertently glancing in the rearview mirror for Levi’s reaction. Not that I discussed details of my sex life with Priya, but guys thought we did.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes rolled so far back they were practically all-white.

  “Less attitude from the peanut gallery, Mr. Montefiore. No one lured you into the car.” I drove through light traffic to my office. “I’m starting to rethink your open door invitation as well,” I said to Pri
ya.

  “I’m just saying. You are not without resources, Ms. Jezebel,” she said, rubbing her lips together to even the color out, which popped against her brown skin.

  “You want me to take his magic? That’s cold, even for–”

  “Enough already. I beg you,” Levi said.

  Priya twisted around in the passenger seat. “That’s a mild pleading at best. Put some effort into it.”

  I snickered.

  Levi draped his arms over the backrest. “You win. Your cases are off-limits unless you share, but you asked if I tried to kill you with illusion magic, so perhaps I have some useful insights on whatever happened to you?”

  “Pri? What do you think?”

  She twisted the cap back on the gloss. “Three brains are better than one.”

  “Two and change,” I said, still mad at Levi, even if he had a point.

  “Drive, Ash,” he said. So, I did.

  Cohen Investigations was part of a shared work space on the second floor of a five-story walk-up with exposed brick, original oak floors, and cool steel cross-bracings that ran through the building, allowing it to sway in an earthquake should the Big One hit. It also had a view of an alley and cockroaches that I was on a first name basis with, but I didn’t care. The second I saw the gold stenciling on my office door, my heart got a jolt of happiness.

  The feather’s hold on me had finally faded, so it was no problem–but still much relief–that I locked up the pouch in my safe, an obnoxious iron box about knee-height in the corner that weighed close to three hundred pounds. I’d inherited it from the previous tenant.

  The longing for that feather magic had amped the regular song of desire playing endlessly in my brain from a three to an eight, so it was nice to have the volume tuned down again. My love of Sherlock stopped short of being an addict in homage.

  My office was pretty basic: two desks, a couple of chairs for clients, and two filing cabinets. The only personal items were a framed photo of Priya and me graduating university on my desk that faced my chair, the dartboard hanging on the wall, and a mug reading “Baker Street Boys” that was crammed with pens–half of which didn’t work, but I had yet to throw out. It had started as laziness but then turned into some weird dead pen collection that I just kept unconsciously adding to.

  Levi and Priya had gone to pick up sushi from a small restaurant down the block, which was good because today had been so insane, I hadn’t had a chance to go food shopping or grab something to eat. I did a quick sponge-down in the restroom and changed into one of my undercover outfits. By the time I returned to my office, the food was spread out over our two desks, and Levi and Priya had already tucked in.

  “Not one word.” I clomped over to my chair in my motorcycle boots and eased into my chair, adjusting my weight to compensate for the one wonky wheel that was Crazy Glued on.

  Levi’s grin was pure unholy glee. “Did my invitation to your wedding at the cult compound get lost in the mail? You and your sister-wives must have made such fetching brides for the charismatic leader.”

  “Ha. Ha.” I snapped my wooden chopsticks in two. “My options were limited.” To a white dress with a fitted bodice, puffy sleeves, and a ruffled hem that hit at the most unflattering point of my mid-calf.

  “Limited because you don’t do laundry and it was the only thing left in your costume bag,” Priya said.

  “This dress conveys sweet and innocent. I’ll have you know it served its purpose admirably when I had to get some information out of a very nice grandmother at a senior’s home.”

  “What kind?” Levi draped his suit jacket over the moss green wingback chair that was set out for clients. “How to churn butter and build a log cabin?”

  “You can’t have it both ways.” I shoveled in my first piece of salmon sashimi. “Am I a cult escapee or Laura Ingalls Wilder?”

  “Hard to say. They both have merit.”

  I wolfed down the rest of the sashimi order, the protein kicking in enough to relay the story of the grove and my suspicions about dealing with Chariot.

  To say that Levi wasn’t happy about any of it was an understatement. He stirred wasabi into his soy sauce with enough force that he was in constant danger of spattering my desk. “We need to figure out who that man was and verify any connection to Chariot. Perhaps that will give us some insights into their overall agenda.”

  “Start by determining if the grove was real or an illusion.” My hands shook, phantom wind rushing past my face, but I covered it by stuffing them under my butt. If it was an illusion, it had felt absolutely real, but I guess that would defeat the point otherwise. “If we can establish his magic type, it could help track him down.”

  I wasn’t ready to share my tarot experience about a stranger helping me manifest my life’s purpose. If I even believed in that stuff, I’d have hoped for a mentor figure, not a fresh nemesis like Evil Wanker, but oh well. Tarot cards weren’t proof of squat, so I’d work this angle like any other case, putting the puzzle together piece by piece.

  “He called you a Seeker.” Priya reached for a dynamite roll with an elegance of motion missing in my frantic eating and Levi’s anger. “It’s a weird way to describe you, especially from an enemy, but it’s similar to being a P.I.”

  “He had the cheat sheet to my life.” I opened a browser on my battered laptop, searching out any relevant symbolism of diamonds, gold, and almonds. “Levi, could the grove have been Houdini magic? The smudges didn’t smell or behave like they normally do.”

  “It’s possible it was illusion magic.” He hated the colloquial term for his type of power. “Whoever cast it might have been misinformed about smudges’ behavior.”

  “Like when you totally abused your privileges and tricked me into thinking I was fighting one during our training session?”

  Levi speared a piece of spicy scallop roll. “I was trying to help jolt you out of a defeatist mindset. What’s the motivation here?”

  “Testing to see if I’m really a Jezebel before they capture and kill me? Could the guy have been the caster?”

  “Again, sure.” Levi ate his piece of sushi, licking an errant drop of soy sauce off his lips.

  Priya kicked me under the table and I tore my eyes away to untangle the ginger in the plastic takeout container.

  “His image might have wavered because he’d overtaxed himself with the smudge illusion,” Levi said. “But that’s only part of the puzzle.”

  I heaped white slivers of ginger on to another piece of sashimi, scanning the current page loaded on my screen. “How so?”

  As someone who’d lived her entire life as a Mundane, I only had a cursory knowledge about different abilities. Learning more about Houdini magic was fascinating to me. I made a note to get some reading from Elke, the librarian at House Pacifica, because if I was going to be pursuing Nefesh cases, then having a broader understanding of magic would be useful.

  “When I cast the illusion that I was fighting Rick at Robson Square, everyone saw it,” Levi said.

  He’d hidden the fact that I was destroying a smudge in front of a captive audience. To keep my magic a secret, Levi had convinced everyone, including the news cameras, that it was him. Most of the hoopla over Levi’s amazingness had died down, but his actions still merited the occasional mention on the news.

  “Illusionists can direct their magic to a single person,” Levi said, “but you were in a moving vehicle. Unless he was in the car with you, he couldn’t target you that specifically. The illusion would have been broadcast more widely and other people would have seen it or at least seen the dark sky and fog when it was first conjured. However, there were no odd reports of anything while you were gone. Miles was monitoring things from that end. Then you reappeared out of nowhere.”

  Miles Berenbaum was Levi’s best friend and in charge of House security.

  “Ash was taken somewhere,” Priya said.

  “A teleporter partnered up with an illusionist?” he said.

  My stomach lu
rched. A member of Chariot had gotten into a jail cell at House Pacifica via teleporting and killed a man.

  Levi dropped his chopsticks on his plate, his expression grim. “The grove itself could have been an illusion, even if you were transported.”

  I clicked through some more search results, then chuckled. “Get this. Dreaming of almonds can symbolize something precious. Usually related to sex. Maybe I just had a very vivid and unfulfilling sex dream.”

  “At least you got a snack,” Priya propped her chin in her hands. “Sometimes, I’d trade the sex for a really satisfying nosh.”

  “TMI. And get a better partner,” Levi said.

  I steered us back onto the topic at hand. My enemy Levi, who I was in a weird thing with, already fit too easily into my life. Having Priya and him get cozy like besties was a no-go. “The almond tree was in a position of prominence in the grove. To what end?”

  I searched “almonds and Jezebel” but didn’t find anything useful. “Hmm. The almond tree is mentioned in the Old Testament in relation to menorahs.” I scanned the page, then sat up sharply.

  “What?” Priya leaned forward.

  “The menorah is a symbol of the Tree of Life. Guess who’s connected to the Tree as well? Asherah.” I’d done some research on both her and Jezebel lately. “Of course. Her temples were often groves.”

  I slumped back in my seat, wishing the connection to Chariot wasn’t falling into place so easily.

  “That’s not the only thing the Tree of Life is connected to. Don’t you guys remember your magic unit?” Priya said.

  “From grade eight? I’m going with no,” Levi said.

  “Kabbalah.” She whipped open her pink laptop and quickly typed, nodding to herself. “Yeah. This. Sephirot. They’re the ten attributes God created and are visually represented as nodes on a tree. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life.”

  I drummed my fingers on my keyboard. “The original ten who unleashed magic were practitioners of Kabbalah, and when Yitzak first warded my magic, he used a Star of David tattoo.”

  “They also put a Star of David necklace on the sketch of Lillian and Santino circulated to the press,” Levi said. They had been our undercover personas on the smudge case.