Bitter Thirst

by SM Reine

  She fell asleep first and I stayed up as long as I could. I kept tracing the shapes of pink continents on her tan-brown skin until I fell asleep with my fingers still circling her elbow.

  When I woke up, Isobel was gone.

  Lucrezia de Angelis stood at the foot of my bed.

  It’s hard to describe the exact sound I made in the moment my groggy eyes opened to see her. It was kind of like Howard Dean’s “byaw” heard round the world mixed with a dying Stormtrooper’s cry, with a dash of teenage girl squeals on top of that.

  This was a woman who’d been selling humans to the House of Abraxas. And she was in my room while I slept.

  My alarms should have woken me up.

  One moment I was lying out flat, the next I was huddled in my corner with the blankets up to my chin. “How did you get in here without being seen?” I asked. My voice was almost an octave too high. “And uh, how much did you see?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  That was taking it a little far. “You probably saw something.”

  “Trust me when I say you have nothing I haven’t seen before, and better.” Lucrezia’s Italian accent somehow made it sound even more insulting. And here I’d thought Russians cornered the market on villainous accents.

  “If you’re here to seduce me, then give me a second to wake up, because I can’t perform while I’m tired.” What? She was sexy. I wasn’t going to run if she was there to have evil sex with her sexy evil body.

  “I’m aware you’re investigating me,” she said.

  I laughed too loudly. “What? Investigating you? I would never—”

  “You pulled my ancestral records. You’ve been running OPA database searches on me. You trespassed at Senator Peterson’s house last night.”

  “Not that I’m admitting to any of that, but if I did trespass, Senator Peterson’s house wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “It would if the demons who killed Senator Peterson are coming for me as well,” Lucrezia said.

  My grip loosened on the blanket. “You know who that was?”

  “I know many demons.”

  “Like the ones who were buying the slaves you and Allyson Whatley sold?”

  I expected that accusation to cause a reaction, but she barely blinked. “It was a temporary deal,” Lucrezia said, as though that made anything better. “Historically, it’s been common for higher races to deal with demons to do dirty work. Now our alliance has ended. I suspect that the House of Abraxas is coming for me.”

  “Wait. The House of Abraxas was responsible for Senator Peterson’s death? Do you have proof of that?”

  “I have a brain. I’ve seen Lilith’s touch in the crime scene photos. The House of Abraxas has been building super-soldiers infected with Lilith’s ichor, so the senator’s death was clearly the work of their assassins.”

  “But the senator was on their side,” I said. The letters from Zettel had made it real fucking clear where Senator Peterson’s loyalty had rested.

  “He was a double agent. He offered to sell them the portal in his basement while secretly drafting PRAY. Once they found out about his legislation, they killed him to stop it.”

  “I thought PRAY mostly just limited certain Americans’ rights,” I said. “Didn’t realize it had enough teeth to worry a Noble House of Hell.”

  “PRAY shuts down demon-owned businesses in America and throttles casual witchcraft to reduce magical noise. When demons do attack, we’ll be better capable of forecasting it.” Lucrezia barked the facts out rapid-fire, like they were prepared talking points. They probably were.

  I gave her a sly look. “So where does Weston Connors fit into this?”

  “Weston?” She actually looked startled. “You’ve met Weston? Where is he?”

  “Los Angeles, last I saw. He’d be in a Union detention facility if Zettel hadn’t released him from our custody.”

  “Zettel prevented his arrest? No. You’re mistaken. If Zettel could get his hands on Weston…” Her tweezer-lipped frown made her face wrinkle unattractively. “Weston was helping me months ago. We had a fight about PRAY and its impacts, and he left. I’ve been concerned about him since.”

  I wasn’t sure I could risk believing her. “Then who’s he working for now? Why’s he casting big spells and surveilling the Peterson house?”

  “He must have found a new ally,” Lucrezia said. “He was never smart enough to work for himself. He’s too angry to make rational decisions. A useful tool if you can hold onto him, but not a reliable one.”

  “So you claim he’s not working with you.”

  “Definitely not. He’s left my people behind since we split in opinions over PRAY.” Lucrezia’s fingers moved down the buttons on her jacket.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I told you, I need time to get ready. Let me wake up.”

  She slid the jacket off of one arm. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt underneath, which gave me a perfect view of her smooth shoulder.

  Lucrezia de Angelis had a tattoo.

  It was the size of a quarter, shaped like an apple, and ringed with frothy green leaves. The apple was bleeding.

  I’d seen that tattoo before. I had run across evil assholes in Reno, Nevada wearing that exact tattoo.

  “Oh fuck,” I said. “You’re with the cult. You’re with the Apple.” They were worshippers of Adam, the first man, also known as God. The lengths they would go to in order to fulfill Adam’s so-called plan…

  “Close your mouth,” Lucrezia said. “Yes, this is exactly what you think it is. The Apple is not the enemy you believe.”

  “I fought Cain myself. He almost fucking killed me just so that he could open a door to Adam.” And he was a werewolf to boot, which meant that if he’d gotten a bite in, I’d be spending two nights a month furry.

  “Cain’s a poor representation of the Apple. He saw a vulnerable group of people with devout beliefs and no leader, and he filled the void to meet his own agenda. I am a purist. I believe in the cause—which is to say, the superiority of angels to human beings, and the need for angels to care for humanity.”

  “Right,” I said. “So you’re not going to put on white Nikes and drink the Kool-Aid?”

  “The Apple is largely populated by witches, but there are some kopides, and some mundane humans.” She paused, letting the words sink in before she went on. “Gary Zettel, Senator Peterson, and Weston were in the Apple with me. Zettel and Weston defected.”

  That was great fucking news. The Office of Preternatural Affairs was being run by a cultist.

  “I’ve been watching you, Agent Hawke,” Lucrezia said, slithering closer. “You’re clearly working to stop PRAY at Zettel’s request, and I’m telling you to stop. We need PRAY.”

  “Everyone I know hates it,” I said.

  “Read H.R. 2076 yourself. You’ll see what I’m telling you about.”

  “It’s over five hundred pages.” To be fair, most fantasy books I read were twice that long, but Robert Jordan was a million times more interesting than legislation.

  Lucrezia huffed. “Read it. You’ll understand. In the meantime, I need your help. Someone is supplying protesters like Lawrence Lefebvre with supplies. I don’t know if Weston is involved, but I suspect Gary Zettel donated Lefebvre’s gun, in addition to several more firearms.”

  My stomach lurched. “You mean there will be more shootings?”

  “Indeed. Quite a few guns have gone missing from a Union warehouse. These ones.” Lucrezia handed me a paper. I skimmed the inventory, and my heart sank. Not only were they powerful guns, they were all marked as enchanted. “Find these guns before there’s another shooting spree.”

  “Why’s this got to be under the table? Start an investigation. Send it to Fritz.”

  “There’s no way to investigate this without revealing how deep the Apple runs in the United States government. I’m not prepared to be exposed. You won’t expose us—you’ll find those guns to save lives.” Lucrezia gripped my chin with her
manicured claws. She leaned in close, like she was going to kiss me. “Do I need to tell you to keep this away from everyone, including Fritz?”

  “This is one of those situations where you’ll kill me if I don’t cooperate, right?” I asked. It always seemed to be that kind of situation with Lucrezia.

  “Better than that,” Lucrezia said. “If you don’t find those guns, other people will die, and it will be your fault.” She released me and straightened.

  I watched her walk out of the room. She was wearing tight white again, and I didn’t see any panty lines. Yes, I was looking hard enough.

  Lucrezia shot one last evil smile over her shoulder at me before breezing out.

  Talk about a femme fatale.

  Not-so-little Cèsar must have had a masochistic streak because he was tenting the blankets after she shut the door.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I told my junk.

  I got out of bed and threw on some clothes before looking into my closet. There was no sign of Suzy, even though it was now eight o’clock in the morning. I was due to meet Pops, Ofelia, and her husband for breakfast downstairs…and I was supposed to have my girlfriend with me.

  My phone buzzed. I’d gotten two new text messages.

  One was from Isobel, and it was led by kissy-face emojis and one eggplant. Then she had written, “See you after the press conference” and punctuated it with one last heart emoji. Couldn’t help but smile at that.

  The other text came from an unknown local number. “I’m not going to breakfast asshole.”

  “What’s a breakfast asshole?” I wondered aloud.

  Ha ha, very funny.

  But seriously.

  Suzy was pissed enough over our confusing fight that she had bought a burner phone just to tell me to go fuck myself. Now I had to show up to family breakfast without any girlfriend, fake or otherwise. And then I had to find a bunch of missing guns before people died.

  “Today is going to be a great day,” I told myself in the bathroom mirror. “Just fucking great.”

  Chapter 15

  Given the option, I’d have skipped breakfast and exploded right into “holy shit let’s find the guns” mode.

  Unfortunately I didn’t have that option.

  The world could have been ending and Pops still never would have forgiven me for missing breakfast.

  I was beaten to the restaurant downstairs by Cooper, Ofelia’s pretty-biker-husband-thing. He’d gone classy for a biker. There weren’t any holes in his jeans and he wore a v-neck sweater.

  “Cèsar.” He greeted me with a firm handshake. I didn’t try to get into strength wars with him this time.

  “Coop,” I said warily.

  “Cooper. Not Coop.”

  “All right.” No problem, Coop, I added mentally.

  He’d picked a table by the windows. They looked out on the protesters of the day. Police lines had pushed them a block away so that they couldn’t get close enough to attack, and at this distance, they were a cloud of faceless anger with signs sprouting out of their heads.

  Distracting myself with the enormous TV behind the bar didn’t help. It was turned to the news. That upstart reporter with bleached-blond hair was trying to catch up with a cluster of protesters with particularly angry signs.

  “Great environment for a family breakfast.” I adjusted the fancy flower on the table. The flower was inoffensive. “How are protests going?”

  “They’re going,” Cooper said.

  A thought occurred to me. Maybe I could get work done after all. “Are you working much with other protesters?”

  “There’s a house where some of us organize. Stuff envelopes, make phone calls.”

  “Have you heard people talking about the shooter, Lawrence Lefebvre? Like they knew him?” I asked.

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed. Even a stupid biker could tell when he was getting questioned. “He ran in some of our circles. I never met him.”

  “Can you tell me who did?”

  “I could give you a name,” he said, “if you tell me why you want to know.”

  “It’s for an investigation. I can’t discuss it.”

  Reluctantly, he said, “I heard Weston talking about him at a meeting last night.”

  “Weston? Do you mean Weston Connors?”

  “Think that’s his name, yeah,” Cooper said.

  “You’re sure? I need you to be certain.” I doubted that it was a different man than the one I’d met in Los Angeles.

  “Close enough to certain I could spit on it. He’s organizing some of our efforts against PRAY,” Cooper said. “Speaking of, I get the feeling you don’t think much of this resistance. You’re supporting PRAY?”

  I opened my Steno pad, wrote down Weston Connors’s name again. “I’m sick of answering that question.”

  “Maybe you don’t know how important all of this is to the common people,” Cooper said. “You’re working for the government. You don’t get out on the streets much.”

  He had no clue how much time I spent on the streets. “Didn’t Ofelia tell you what I do?”

  “I’ve done some reading about you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Because that wasn’t suspicious at all.

  “You don’t have much of a social media presence, but I found the arrest on your record,” Cooper said. “I also know how much time you spend with the son of a billionaire family, the Friederlings, who have an empire in Hell.” Now his voice was taking on a hard edge to match his clenched muscles.

  I traced my forefinger and thumb along my upper lip, where I was getting stubble. Hadn’t had time to shave. “Let me give you a tip, Coop.” His eyes brightened. They were a weird shade of brown, so light that they almost looked gold in the sunshine. “If you’re meeting your wife’s family, and you want to make a good impression, you don’t pick fights with the guy who agreed to advocate for you.”

  “Ofelia told you?”

  “I’m her big brother. And I’m here to help talk Pops into not strangling you with his bare hands when he finds out what you’ve been up to.” I leaned my elbows on the table. “What is it? Shotgun wedding? And now you’re here looking for money?”

  Cooper didn’t exactly slam his fist on the table, but he put it down firmly enough that the silverware rattled. “I get that you’re trying to protect your sister. What you need to understand is that I will protect her with my life. I will protect her with your life and the lives of every soul on this planet if I have to. I don’t need her grandfather’s approval and I don’t need your money.”

  Cooper’s attempt to intimidate me wasn’t going to work. I’d mastered the burly-guy-protecting-Ofelia act years earlier. “If you think you don’t need Pops’s blessing, then you don’t know your wife.”

  “Voice down.” His eyes lifted to the opposite door.

  Ofelia and Pops entered. My sister had made an effort to look like she belonged in an upscale hotel, but Pops had made no similar effort. He wore slippers and his favorite cozy sweater. “Hey guys.” Ofelia kissed Cooper briefly then slipped into the chair next to me. “Where’s your girlfriend, Cèsar?”

  “She’s…” Angry at me for reasons that only make sense to the convoluted labyrinth of a crazy woman’s brain. “She got busy.”

  She balled her fists in her lap. “Busy?” she asked me in a low voice. Ofelia thought that I was backing down, being unsupportive of her efforts to get Pops on her side.

  “It’s complicated,” I hissed at her.

  “You better fucking uncomplicate it, Ceez,” she hissed back.

  “Nobody calls me that.”

  “Bet nobody does this either.” She pinched me.

  “Ow!” I pinched her back.

  “Quiet down, children,” Pops said. “Hey! Waiter! You better get a Bloody Mary in my hands in the next ninety seconds or I’m gonna kill my kids. Extra spicy!”

  The wait staff wasn’t used to a Hawke family invasion. The waiter shot a distasteful look at us. “Listen to the man,” I said with my best
authoritative voice. It worked on Janet from forensics—occasionally—so I hoped it would work on waiters.

  It worked, in the sense that he stalked away looking like he was going to hock a loogie into the Bloody Mary.

  “No girlfriend, I see,” Pops said. “Just as I suspected. We don’t need this other chair, do we?” He kicked it away from the table, shoving it to the table next to us. It nearly pulled the white tablecloth off.

  I hadn’t thought that there could be a reaction worse than Ofelia’s look of betrayal. “My girlfriend is busy.”

  “Broke up with you, you mean? Or was she fantasy the whole time? Fantasy’s a nice way of asking if you’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not talking about this,” I said.

  I’d probably have been smacked upside the head if he hadn’t gotten a Bloody Mary in that moment. “For the best anyway,” Pops said. He took a long drink. “Never did meet a girl who could put up with you that long, Cèsar.”

  Which was the exact moment Isobel Stonecrow walked into the restaurant.

  Isobel must have come directly from Secretary Zettel’s press conference. She wore a deep-blue skirt suit that brought out the cocoa tones of her skin. She still wore her tribal-looking hairpieces, since those were glamours, but they dotted a knot at the nape of her neck rather than dangling loose.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” Isobel said, running a hand over my shoulders as she circled the table. “Hello, I’m Isobel Stonecrow. Cèsar’s girlfriend.”

  Oh man, the stares were so fucking satisfying.

  I stood up to kiss Isobel. “Didn’t think you were going to make it,” I whispered, pulling her toward me with a hand on her waist.

  She tilted her lips toward my ear. “Fritz felt your panic through the bond. We made the time.”

  Isobel made me look so much goddamn better than I deserved. The way she crossed her ankles under her chair, the neat way she smoothed the napkin over the swells of her thighs.

  She’d come from much better places than I had. Not from a family that got into slap-fights well into adulthood, but a family where she’d been groomed for law and married into money.

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you finally,” she said, letting her fingers rest on the back of Pops’s hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”