by Gina LaManna
“Jones doesn’t have the characteristics of a recreational drug user,” I said with a frown. “When I checked his Residuals yesterday, there were none of the usual signs: Scent Sweepers, Drug Deducers, Sanity Boosters—nothing that the usual suspects use to cover up their tracks.”
“He was picked up once for illegal purchase of a Goblin Girl,” Matthew said. “Often, the crimes one is picked up for is tenfold less than what they’ve actually committed.”
“Illegal purchase of a Goblin Girl?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you think it could be related to the body we found in 309?”
Matthew shook his head. “It was an underage soliciting attempt. He was seventeen, and the legal age to engage with a Goblin Girl is twenty-one. The files are technically sealed on Joey, but...”
I understood what wasn’t said. Matthew had power, status, and the skills to unlock things meant to stay hidden. I dared not press him further since the topic was too close to my heart. After all, The Hex Files wouldn’t unlock themselves.
“Here we are.” Matthew stopped in front of a two-way mirror. “He hasn’t moved for an hour.”
Behind the glass sat Joey Jones with his head in his hands, looking as if he had the mother of all hangovers. He barely looked alive, save for the uneven breaths he inhaled every few seconds.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Keep this brief—I don’t think he’s our guy, and we can’t waste time on drug charges when we’ve got a double homicide waiting for us.”
Matthew nodded to the witch who sat in the surveillance room. She pressed a few buttons, muttered an incantation, and the door opened with a hiss. Matthew and I had barely stepped foot into the room before it clanked shut behind us.
“Hi, Joey,” I said. “I’m Detective DeMarco, and this is—”
“The vampire,” he groaned. “I know.”
“Captain King,” I corrected. “We’re here to ask you a few questions.”
I knew it bothered Matthew to no end that no matter how proficient he might be at his job, or how much he’d given up to defend the city, he would always be known as the vamp.
“Can I get some water?” Joey croaked. “I’m dying here.”
“You’ll be dying more if you don’t give us information,” I said, but I gestured for the witch behind the mirror to pass a glass of water through the door. Once I’d handed it to Joey, I sat down, folded my hands in front of me, and resumed. “What happened to you last night?”
“I don’t know, man.” Joey stopped to suck down the glass of water in a noisy gulp. “I don’t know what that stuff was, but it knocked me on my ass—I can tell you that.”
“Yeah, I know—we saw. Carried you here myself, actually,” I said. “Start from the beginning. Talk fast and don’t lie, and we’ll see what we can do about the drug charges. One wrong step, and you’ll be behind bars faster than you can say Hash.”
“It wasn’t SpellHash,” he said, immediately defensive. “I mean, I’m not saying I know what Hash is like...” His eyes shifted between us, saw stone in our gazes, and then broke. “Fine. I’m a recreational Hash user—but I never overdose, and I’m always at home. No way I’m wandering around the borough on Hash—I’d get caught in a heartbeat, and I can’t go to prison. I’m too pretty for prison.”
I tried not to flinch as he said it, but I couldn’t help it. Joey had a certain appeal to him, I supposed, for the right sort of girl—like the elf from the casino who’d drooled over him. To me, he looked like a slicked back broom salesman with a little more polish than a thug. Sitting across from Matthew, he couldn’t even be called handsome.
“Fine, I’m not a looker like the vamp, but how can I compare to a true supernatural?” Joey shrugged. “My dad’s a shifter with the pack. I’m a peripheral member, but nothing important. I’m not bound by blood, none of that crap. I make my money at the casino, and I spend most of my nights alone.”
“When’s the last time you sought the company of a Goblin Girl?” Alone my ass, I thought. The man had spent at least a night with the elf. “Before you answer, let me remind you what I said about lying.”
Joey sighed and put his head flat on the table. I rested my fingers there for a moment, felt the coolness of the marble, and realized it was the equivalent of a wet washcloth for him. If magic weren’t blanketed in interview rooms, I would’ve refilled his water glass, but at the moment, my patience was lacking.
“We’ve got Hangover Helper waiting for you if you get talking,” I said. “It’ll help the headache and aches and pains. No truth, no hex.”
“Last Goblin Girl I saw was probably six weeks ago. She was middle-aged,” Joey confessed, “and all I could afford at the time.”
I nodded. “How often do you normally see them?”
Joey shrugged. “I stopped seeing them just over a month ago. Before that, I’d find one whenever I had a good night at the casino. Usually once a week.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“I met this elf,” he said, looking a little sheepish. “She was a fun time. I figured, why pay for the green girls if I got myself a real elf?”
“Lovely,” I said under my breath. It wasn’t loud enough for Joey to hear, but it drew a wry smile from Matthew. Louder, and feeling sorry for the elf, I continued. “So, you met the elf at the casino. Anything special about her?”
Joey gave a cheesy sort of grin and looked straight to Matthew. “Sure, but nothing I’d want to say in front of a lady.”
“Anything that doesn’t involve the bedroom?” I clarified. “We know you enjoy your evenings with her.”
“Oh, not only evenings, Detective,” he said with a leer toward me. “Those elves are insatiable, I’m telling you—”
“Joey—” I snapped. Matthew coughed, which I suspected was to cover up a laugh. I ignored him and continued. “I’m talking about the Hash—did she use or sell? Is she the one who got you into this mess?”
“No way, she’s a good girl. Innocent, really. She’s just a casino groupie. She’s clean. I swear the elf isn’t involved in this at all.”
“If I didn’t know any better,” I said smoothly, “I’d say you’re developing feelings for her.”
“Not a chance,” Joey said, though his eyes didn’t follow through. “She’s...whatever. Leave her out of it.”
I nodded, letting the win sink in for a moment while Joey fumed at his transparency. When he was thoroughly steamed, I changed tactics. “Do you sell?”
“Me? No. I’m not smart enough to sell much of anything.”
At least he wasn’t lying so far, I thought, glancing at Matthew to see if he agreed. He gave a nearly unnoticeable nod—the signal to continue.
“What did you take last night, Joey?” I leaned forward, begging him to know the answer. “What was in your system?”
The deeper we got into the questioning, the more I wondered if Joey hadn’t been mere collateral damage. As much as it pained me to be no further in the investigation, I just couldn’t see Joey Jones as the mastermind behind a high-profile double homicide.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I went to the Howler like I usually do to pregame for Saturday night at the casino. I must’ve gotten there at three in the afternoon.”
“You like to start early,” I said wryly. “What happened then?”
“I ordered my usual—Wolfram Whiskey on the rocks—and then sat down in my normal booth.”
“Where’s your normal booth?”
“The one in the corner, last row—straight line of sight to the bar. Lorraine’s got a great rack. I like an unobstructed view.”
“Your girlfriend is so fortunate to have you,” I snapped. Then took a deep breath and focused back on the case. “Was that the same booth where we found you?”
Joey stared straight at me. “Lady, I don’t remember ever seeing you before. No offense—I mean, I’m sure I would have remembered if I had seen you...” His gaze traveled suggestively downward until Matthew cleared his throat. Joey’s head whipped up so qui
ckly I wondered if he’d feel it the next day. “I just mean—I don’t remember a thing after I took a sip of that drink.”
“Who served you the drink?”
“Lorraine.”
“Did you talk to anyone else?” I pressed, tapping my fingers against the table. “Did anyone besides Lorraine touch your drink?”
He shook his head. “Obviously, she’s my favorite bartender since the rest are dudes. I tip her well, so she always jumps to help me. She poured the drink, and I watched her make it. You know, she shakes the ice and the whiskey, and everything’s all bouncy and...” He abruptly stopped. “The answer to your question is no.”
“Are you sure?”
“I swear on my life. She handed me the drink, which she poured straight from the bottle, and then I took it over to my booth. Nobody came over to talk to me. I saw people I recognized, but I didn’t talk to any of them. I had a few sips and whoosh.” He signaled over his head. “Next thing I knew I woke up behind bars. You have to understand, Detective—I’m not one of the pack. Nobody particularly likes me in that bar; they just accept me because it’s against pack law to kill the descendants of a blooded wolf.”
I nodded, well aware. And unsurprised that Joey wasn’t a popular figure there. “But that would mean your drink was poisoned—or something.”
“He couldn’t have been cursed?” Matthew murmured it as a question, but it was more of a statement. “It’s possible to curse without touching the targeted individual.”
“Not a hint of any magic in any of his Residuals. He was almost entirely clean.”
I preferred to keep my peculiar talents under wraps whenever possible, since I never quite knew how someone would react. I kept my voice low enough so that Joey couldn’t hear, which was one of the benefits of working with a vampire—and also the downfall. There was no such thing as a whispered secret around the captain.
Matthew nodded to show he understood. Then he asked his first question to Joey of the morning. “Did you give Lorraine any reason to doctor your drink?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So, you didn’t perhaps stare at her body day in and day out?” I asked, glancing skeptically at Matthew and tried to shut my mouth. It didn’t work. “I’m just saying, I might’ve cursed him too.”
Joey narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s not very professional, Detective.”
“Neither is you speaking to my bra,” I said. “Do you think Lorraine poisoned you somehow?”
“No. I mean, I know I can get carried away, but I swear—I didn’t ever pressure Lorraine into anything. We had a good banter, and I always tipped well. I knew that messing with Lorraine would get me kicked out of that bar faster than a wolf howls at the moon.”
“He does have a point,” I admitted, to both myself and Matthew. “If Lorraine had an issue with him, she would have told us. Or, more likely, she would’ve had the wolves ban him long ago.”
“If Lorraine didn’t poison you,” Matthew said, speaking with the distinct, old-English form of enunciation that arrived when he was too distracted to change his speech patterns to more modern ones, “then someone might have poisoned the bottle.”
“Yeah, right,” Joey said. “You said you found me zonked? Well, the Howler goes through a bottle of Wolfram Whiskey in an hour—it’s the signature drink there. You would’ve found a bar full of zombies if the bottle was poisoned. I’m telling you, I couldn’t move a muscle.”
“I know,” I said dryly. “You weren’t much help walking back to the station. Listen, Joey—I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe you. Everything you’ve told me adds up, and frankly, you said it yourself—you’re not sly enough to deal.”
“Agreed.” Joey sounded too proud of that fact, but in this case, it worked in his favor. “Someone had it in for me, but I don’t know who. I swear I haven’t pissed off anyone in the last few weeks.”
“What a gentleman.” I moved along too fast for him to respond, though the sarcasm amused Matthew again. “So, what do you think happened?”
Matthew appeared surprised by my change in tactic, as did Joey. The latter sat back and bit his lip in concentration. “That’s a good question, Detective.”
“She’s good at her job,” Matthew said. Though he didn’t look at me, his words were weighted, as if there was additional meaning behind them.
I ignored him. “Speculate, Joey. Think outside of the box.”
He took his time thinking, his eyebrows knitted together. Under the slick exterior, I could see a hint of what the elf had found in him. A youthfulness, a sense of innocence covered by a well-worn cape of bravado and charisma, and the genuine way he seemed to want to help.
He blew out a huge sigh and turned to face me. “I am sorry, Detective, Captain. I really wish I knew. All I can say for certain is that whatever knocked me out—I’ve never seen it before. Never heard its name whispered on the streets. And, I have to say, I never want to see it again.”
Chapter 10
“What’d you make of him?” Matthew asked as he left the building with Dani close behind. “Do you believe him?”
Dani was too lost in thought to respond. After a few paces in silence, she gave a distracted shake of her head. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “My gut feeling says he’s telling the truth. I’ll know better after we talk to Lorraine.”
Matthew gave a firm nod of agreement, pleased with the ease at which the two still communicated on the job. If only their personal lives could have gone so smoothly, he thought, as their feet pounded in sync down the road. Neither spoke, yet they both knew they were headed back to the Howler.
In daylight, Wicked was a beautiful place—save for the certain areas that mothers warned their children to avoid when they first learned to walk. Certain land: the casino area, Goblin Grid, and of course the necromancy regions—along with the Otherlands, were often avoided at all costs.
Today, however, the darkness had pervaded the borough. Matthew and Dani walked south of the market, past the hustling and bustling portion of the borough that drew tourists from around the globe to its quirky, cobblestone strewn streets and unique magical culture. Wicked Way remained one of the most densely populated magical streets in the world and had been since the Salem witch trials caused people to flee toward the hidden borough for safety.
With stores piled over three hundred stories high and proper shopping only accomplished on a broomstick, every vendor in Wicked flocked to peddle their wares. Both Matthew and Dani avoided the market as much as possible. Between the two of them, they’d arrested too many people. There was no way they could make it through the markets without running into someone they’d locked up who still had a chip on their shoulder.
They veered down a dirt road winding just north of DeMarco’s Pizza. Dani seemed lost in thought, but Matthew was reluctant to let precious time alone slip through his fingers.
“How’s retired life treating you?” he asked as they rounded the pizzeria. They watched through the windows as Jack grinned brightly at a customer and slung her a slice of fresh pizza.
She frowned. “The idiot is flirting with her. Twenty bucks Jack doesn’t charge her for the slice.”
“I know your brother too well to take you up on that bet.” Matthew smiled delicately. “I see a different set of issues comes with owning a business than it does with the detective life?”
“You could say that.” Dani pulled her gaze from the window, glanced at the dust swirling around their shoes as they continued down the street. “It’s quieter, but it’s good. The only destruction I have to worry about is the occasional customer having too much vino or Jack burning the crust.”
“The quiet doesn’t always help,” he said knowingly. “They catch up to you, you know.”
“What does?”
Matthew glanced at her, averted his eyes. “The demons. The memories, the screams, the smells of dead bodies. It’s normal if you’re struggling with any of that, Danielle.”
�
�Well, I’m not.”
“You have to let the past go.”
“I have, Matthew. It’s my business what I do with my own past, so stay out of it.” Dani picked up the pace as the Howler came into view. “I’m fine.”
Matthew stopped in the middle of the road, adjusted the tie he wore with his suit. It had cost him more than most people made in a year, but then again, Matthew had more money than he could ever use. He didn’t need much: he didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t have many vices—besides Dani.
His money had to go somewhere, and he enjoyed the feel of the exquisite fabrics against his skin. His senses were so hyper aware that anything less than the best felt itchy and constricting. Dressing well was one of his only luxuries.
“If you were fine, The Hex Files wouldn’t matter.”
“That’s different,” she said. “You know that has nothing to do with everything you just said.”
“The past is—”
“The past is the past,” Dani interrupted, her eyes darkening to a murky shade of violet. “For me, The Hex Files are not yet in the past.”
Matthew had never figured out how or why, but when she was angered or drunk with desire or scanning Residuals, the detective’s eyes turned a shade of purple he’d never seen in anyone. Maybe it was something to do with her talents, the fact that she was a Reserve, or maybe it was just her. Either way, Matthew lived to see the violet.
He swept to her, closing the distance between them, his hand landing on her cheek as he took in her irresistible scent. Throwing professionalism out the window, he planted his mouth on hers, and he took. He stole from her a kiss that burned the very stone of his skin, the blood in her veins, the current between them.
Dani’s eyes lit from murky purple to an electric violet. Her body reacted, and she leaned into him, her eyes closing as she began to take in return. Matthew broke the spell first. He stepped backward, both of them breathing heavily. He could feel the blood pounding through her veins, the increase in her body temperature, the skittish way her heart raced.