Bitter Thirst

by SM Reine

  He paused in front of the basement door. Then kept walking.

  Once he was gone, I let out one last sneeze.

  “Suck it up, Hawke.” Suzy pounded a fist into my back. She may have broken my spine in the process, just a little bit. “Whatever’s down here must be good to deserve this level of warding.”

  She pushed past me to head down the stairs. Suzy took off her sunglasses, stuffed them into her hair. It would have been too dark to see in the basement otherwise.

  It was a wine cellar, as promised. Senator Peterson had been aging two entire barrels of wine in his lightless basement. His liquor shelves had at least twice as many bottles as Fritz’s, which wasn’t easy to do. Fritz loved his expensive booze.

  Unfortunately the basement hadn’t been designed for guys like me to retrieve the aforementioned expensive booze. The joists were only six feet above the floor, so I had to stoop in order to look around.

  “Am I chickenshit?” I asked Suzy over my shoulder.

  She didn’t pause before saying, “Yes.”

  Ask a stupid question…

  “My family is pissed that I’m not fighting louder against PRAY,” I said. “They think I should be more worked up about it.”

  “They’re right,” she said.

  “But why? It’s not like getting all worked up helps anything. I am fighting against it within the parameters of my job, too.”

  “Because your boss told you to, and because of peer pressure.” Suzy lifted the drop cloth off of a fainting couch. Not evidence. She flicked it back into place. “When you want to do something, you’ll break seventeen laws per second to get it done. Sticking to the ‘parameters of your job’ means you’re being chickenshit about this.”

  “Thanks for the talk, Suze, I feel so much better now,” I said.

  “I wasn’t trying to make you feel better, chickenshit.” But her face melted into a sympathetic smile, which might have been the one expression I’d never seen her make before. “Family sucks.”

  Had she always been this pretty? Had I ever stopped looking at Suzy’s ass long enough to look at her face? I found it hard to believe I’d have never noticed Suzy’s eyes and lips before if she’d always been this pretty.

  “Family sucks, yeah,” I said, catching up with the conversation.

  Suzy had already moved on to look for evidence. She pointed under the stairs. “Look here.”

  There was a circle of stones on the floor underneath. Not like the circle of stones at Lenox’s house, but more like a basin that was meant to be stood in. I’d seen similar basins before. “That looks a lot like a portal to Hell,” I said.

  Suzy carefully stepped a safe distance around the edges of it. There were footprints in the dust. “That’s because it is a portal to Hell.”

  “Same one from Reno?” I took my trusty Steno pad from my jacket’s inner pocket.

  “Yes,” she said. “See the northernmost cluster of rocks? One of them is cracked. It was the same with the Reno portal.”

  I hadn’t noticed the cracked portal rock before. I’d been too busy trying not to die.

  Now I made note of it on my paper, and a few other distinguishing details. I crouched down low so I could see the runes engraved in its edges and drew those too.

  “Pretty sure this thing is oriented the same as the one in Reno,” I said. “So someone’s got it down here on purpose. And with all the orange dust from Hell…”

  “Someone’s been using it. Let me see your notes.” Suzy yanked the Steno pad away and flipped back to the drawings I’d made earlier. “This portal doesn’t have any relation to the wards on the Peterson windows.”

  “So they were cast by different witches?”

  Suzy grinned at me. “Dare you to go through and see who’s on the other side.”

  I was going to have to pass on that one. Anyway, I was coming up on an interesting line of thought, and I didn’t want to lose it. “Senator Peterson was pinned against the wall by something Fritz called Lilith’s touch,” I said.

  “You mean spears of hardened ichor that look like obsidian?”

  “How do you know what that is?”

  “It’s called reading,” Suzy said. “I have been known to do that occasionally. Try getting your nose out of the next George R.R. Martin and maybe you’ll know useful facts too, instead of who’s the king in the north.”

  “It should be a Targaryen,” I said.

  She gave me a Look.

  “Anyway, if he was killed by a demon from Hell, and he deliberately placed a portal to Hell in his basement…” I shrugged.

  “You’re thinking this wasn’t a random murder, but personal,” Suzy said.

  “More likely it was business.” My heart was sinking, and not from the idea of getting killed for dealing with demons. “Or it could have been a hit… Someone else could have put this portal here.”

  “Let’s find out.” Suzy picked a clean patch of floor and took a velvet bag out of her pocket. She spread salt, placed tiny candles, some string. “I’m going to reveal the energy in the room.”

  “Expecting to find the work of witches?”

  “Maybe warlocks,” she said.

  I’d heard about warlocks. They were an old, old kind of magic-user that didn’t exist anymore, mostly because demon magic didn’t exist anymore.

  “Warlock magic takes forever to set up,” Suzy said. “It takes forever to cast. For someone to cast demon spells in Peterson’s basement, they’d have had to be here for days, maybe weeks. The senator would have known that there were demons here.”

  “It wouldn’t take that long if you’ve got the Union’s written magic.” I didn’t mean to state the obvious, but she’d been out of town for so long that I wasn’t sure she’d know.

  And Suzy did look confused. “Written magic?”

  “Remember how Allyson stored spells in those ribbons? It’s been distilled down to runes, and the Union’s been slapping that stuff on everything. Even I’ve got runes on my gun these days.”

  “That’s terrifying.”

  “You’re telling me.” Shitty witches like me shouldn’t have that much power in our reach.

  While Suzy kept working, I searched through a nearby filing cabinet and didn’t find anything of interest. There was a scrap of what looked like a ledger, but the information was unreadable.

  It wasn’t until I was searching in the desk next to the filing cabinet that I found them.

  “Letters,” I said, shuffling through the pages.

  “Letters? On paper?” Suzy edged over, careful not to interfere with the edge of her circle. “Who sends letters like that in this day and age?”

  I showed the signature on the bottom of the page to her. “Gary Zettel.”

  “What do they say?” she asked, returning her attention to drawing on the floor.

  I gave the letters a quick skim. The fact they were on paper made a hell of a lot of sense once I saw how sensitive the information was—the kind of thing you wouldn’t want the NSA to know about. No wonder it looked like it’d been printed on a Dot Matrix. Zettel must have dusted off an old Apple without network capability to type those letters.

  “Basically, it’s Zettel trying to talk Peterson out of making deals with demons,” I said. “Something about…armies marching out of Hell? And angels getting angry because it’s not part of the deal?”

  “A deal,” Suzy said with an ominous tone. “Peterson made a deal with demons and angels.”

  “Yeah, it looks like Peterson was trying to open some kind of pathway between dimensions.”

  Suzy dropped her chalk. “No.”

  I kept reading, hoping to find some other information nugget. But after the first couple of letters from Zettel, details became increasingly sparse, and the pleading increased. “We just want to make sure you’re safe,” said the letters.

  The last of them didn’t have any kind of conclusion. Senator Peterson had been assassinated so they hadn’t been able to continue their correspondence.<
br />
  “It didn’t happen.” I stuffed the letters back. “Peterson must have welched on the deal. He got killed instead of opening the pathway.”

  “Good. I don’t even want to fucking think about what would happen if there was a fissure that let demon armies march on Earth.”

  “That’s some end-of-days shit,” I agreed.

  Suzy lit the first of her candles. “Especially if there are warlocks again. Remember Aniruddha?”

  I couldn’t have forgotten Suzy’s douchebag of a boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if he counted as an “ex-boyfriend” since he’d been kidnapped to Hell before they could break up, but I knew their relationship hadn’t been going well.

  “He and the others were taken by Belphegor,” Suzy said. Also a name I hadn’t forgotten. “He’s an ancient demon, very ancient, and he’s been doing things in Hell that only a warlock could do. I haven’t seen direct magic from him, but—”

  “How do you know what he’s been doing in Hell at all?” I asked.

  “The movement against the OPA includes some former slaves,” she said. “I’ve heard first-hand accounts of what’s happening in Dis.”

  “Shit. That sounds bad.”

  “It’s bad,” Suzy agreed. “We’re about to be able to see the cables of a whole other kind of magic. Brace yourself.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  The last syllable fell from my mouth and I saw it.

  Magic.

  It was not my kind of magic. It was a lot more complex, a lot more jagged, and breathing in its air made me sneeze wildly.

  I got control of myself once Suzy finished her spell. It left the magic visible. Crimson and orange bars crisscrossed the room, like we were standing in the middle of a huge spider web. The center of the web rested over the portal itself.

  “Someone must have cast a lot of spells in here to get this result,” I said.

  Suzy didn’t reply. I turned to see why she was being quiet.

  I found her clutching her throat in both hands, mouth opening and shutting like an Imperial commander who was being Force-choked by Darth Vader.

  “Suzy!”

  She fell but I grabbed her before she hit the floor. When she tumbled, she broke the perimeter of the spell with her elbow. All those bright cables of magic brightened for one moment—so bright that I saw them mirrored in green on my vision. And then they vanished.

  Chapter 13

  Suzy started breathing again once the warlock magic faded. “I tripped warlock wards,” she rasped, splashing water on her face. We’d found a bathroom in the back corner of Peterson’s basement. The water smelled like rust.

  “Why’d the wards only choke you?” I asked. “Were they only supposed to attack people casting magic?”

  She sipped rust water out of her palm. “They didn’t choke me directly. It felt like I had an allergic reaction.”

  “Like the reactions I have?” Hers had looked so much more severe than mine—more like an attack than the body’s pathetic attempt at defending itself from hostiles.

  She splashed a little more water on her face and in her hair. “We have to get out of here. Someone should have felt that magic surge.”

  The fastest way to escape from the Peterson house was through basement windows. The lawn was still being patrolled by members of the Union, so we had to wait almost a half-hour for a gap in security to bolt. Once we hit the sidewalk, we melded with the crowd leaving the memorial.

  I didn’t relax until we got to the sidewalk. It was snowing big wet flakes on us, muffling all sound, making everything glow purple. Gave me a good excuse to pull up my jacket, hide my face.

  “So Zettel was trying to save Peterson,” I muttered to Suzy. “Shit, I didn’t expect that. If Peterson got killed for welching on a deal with Lucrezia, then maybe Zettel’s being honest with me.”

  “Wanna bet your life on it?” she asked.

  I didn’t.

  We found our way to a diner that served hot coffee and a big plate of anonymity. The kind of dive where even lower-middle-class government employees wouldn’t risk eating. My biscuits and gravy looked like it had been reheated from packaged food, and Suzy said the coffee tasted like burned paper.

  Perfect hiding place.

  Once Suzy left me to visit the bathroom, I pulled out my second cell phone. Not the fancy smartphone that work paid for, but a burner that Fritz had given me. He replaced it every few months so I could never remember the incoming number. Not a big deal—I only ever made outgoing calls with it anyway.

  Fritz picked up after one ring, like he always did. “Are you okay? You registered adrenaline again.”

  “You weren’t spying on me, were you?” I asked.

  “I’m trying to keep the bond closed, but you don’t make it easy. What the hell are you doing?”

  “I visited the Peterson house again.” I gave him a brief overview of what I’d found in the basement, without mentioning Suzy. “Looks like whatever it is Zettel wants, he probably is against Lucrezia. And I’m thinking Lucrezia killed Senator Peterson.”

  I heard shuffling on his end of the phone line, like he was covering the microphone with his hand. When he came back on it was quieter. “You found letters where Zettel was trying to talk Peterson out of collaborating with demons, and you assume that means Zettel is innocent?”

  “Not innocent.” That wasn’t a word I could ever use for Gary Zettel. “But maybe we can trust him.”

  “Do you really want to trust Zettel with the future of the nation, or are you looking for another way out of this case?” Fritz asked.

  He didn’t use the word “chickenshit,” but I felt it clawing at the base of my skull. Everyone else thought it. Fritz did too. And they were crazy, all of them—crazy assholes who were going to get killed.

  If we hadn’t gone digging around in Senator Peterson’s basement, Suzy wouldn’t have almost choked to death from warlock magic.

  “Do you really think Zettel’s lying to us, or are you just hoping he sucks so you don’t feel bad taking his job?” I asked.

  Fritz was quiet. I was glad that I was away from him—over on the other side of town, crammed into a booth—because that meant that he’d have to do a lot of walking in my direction to start punching.

  He didn’t speak for a long time. Long enough that I got fidgety.

  Suzy emerged from the head and was walking in my direction again.

  “So what happens next, Fritz?” I asked.

  “Whether we trust Zettel or not, we need to take Lucrezia down. Focus on the case against her.” He hung the phone up before I could respond.

  Suzy didn’t sit down when she reached me. She gave her cup of coffee an offended look. “The fuck is this?”

  “Another cup of coffee. I got a refill for you,” I said.

  “I want it to go. Ready to leave?”

  “For where?” I’d been planning to sit at the diner a while, review my notes, try to figure out where I could go next with the investigation.

  “My parents’ house,” Suzy said. “Remember our agreement?”

  I nearly choked on my water. “We’re going to do that now?”

  “There’s a good chance that Zettel will murder you when he realizes that you’re investigating him. You can’t come with me to talk to my parents if you’re dead.”

  “I could if you asked Isobel real nice,” I said.

  Thunderclouds crossed her features. “Get your ass out of the booth. We’re going.”

  We went.

  Suzy’s parents were stupidly rich, though not richer than Fritz. You know how I knew this? Because when we walked up to their house, we found a property that took up an entire city block in a city where space was at a serious premium. They also had one of those loopy driveways that only rich people need because limos frequently drop off guests.

  So they were rich. Very rich. But if they’d been richer than Fritz, they would have had a helicopter pad, and I didn’t see one.

  “You never told me your pa
rents are loaded,” I said.

  “Why would I?” She looked so annoyed that I reflexively covered my arm, where I’d gotten a bruise from all the knuckle-punches. “It’s not like it matters.”

  “Guess not. What do they do?”

  “Just volunteering these days. They’re retired.” She took off her sunglasses, pushed her hood down, and pressed the buzzer on the outside of the gate. “Mama? It’s me.”

  A tinny voice came from the speaker. “Suzume?”

  “Whiskey tango foxtrot,” Suzy said.

  The intercom buzzed, and the gates swung open.

  I’d spent enough time with Fritz not to be intimidated by rich-people stuff, but I still couldn’t keep from staring. “What’d your parents do before they retired?”

  “Nothing,” she said again. “They invested their inheritance well and did no work whatsoever.”

  I stared at Suzy hurrying up the driveway ahead of me. This time, I was only half staring at her ass. “I thought you lived with your grandma.”

  “Starting when I was a teenager, yes. I left this life to finish out my school in Los Angeles, and the rest is history.”

  We were met at the front door of the house by an older couple. Mom’s hair was glossy blue-black, Dad’s was more like charcoal. They were wearing suits as if they’d just gotten back from an office. Not the kind of people who looked like they were doing “nothing.”

  “Hi Mama,” Suzy said. “Father.”

  “Suzume.” Her mother’s only sign of emotion was the tears that glimmered in her eyes, but she was trying not to blink so they wouldn’t fall. “It’s been a long time.”

  Her dad shook my hand. “I’m Sentaro Takeuchi. This is my wife, May.”

  “Pleasure to meet you both. I’m Cèsar Hawke. Used to be Suzy’s partner at the OPA.”

  “Of course we’ve heard of you,” May said. I wasn’t sure if she sounded chilly because she already disliked me, or if she was just a chilly human being. “Please, come inside. Both of you. Immediately.”

  It was weird to walk into a mansion with a couple of people who looked like boring old versions of Suzy. I’d have expected her to spawn from the loins of sassy action-movie heroes. Or maybe I’d have expected her to be born from a crack in a god’s head. These were reserved, normal human beings—the boring opposite of Suzy.