Bitter Thirst

by SM Reine

  Pops’s glare could have scorched my eyebrows off. “I bet you have.”

  “Good things,” Isobel said. “And you—you must be Ofelia.”

  Ofelia leaned back in her chair, a skeptical eye traveling over Isobel. “You’re Cèsar’s girlfriend?” It was the most disbelieving statement I’d ever heard from her, delivered in the same way she’d have remarked upon all the cows flying overhead.

  “Yep,” I said, extending my arm along the back of her chair. Isobel shined a smile at me. “This is my girlfriend.”

  Her smile softened at the edges. “I don’t think you’ve ever said that before.” She was a good actress. I knew that, Fritz knew that. Isobel faked it like nobody’s business. And now she’d turned her amazing ability to fake whatever personality she wanted on my family.

  Even Pops didn’t stand a chance.

  So breakfast went well at first.

  Maybe the whole thing would have been fine if we’d gotten our food quickly, so we’d have gotten out quickly. But snapping at the waiters meant our service was slower than the speed of smell. They had us sitting around while the news wore on and the crowd shifted outside and the awkwardness grew.

  I mostly let other people talk. And by other people, I meant the women. Pops hadn’t stopped glaring at me like he was angry that I’d produced a girlfriend, and Coop had regressed to a nonverbal state.

  “How long have you and your boyfriend known each other?” Isobel asked Ofelia.

  “It’s been a couple of years,” Ofelia said. “I was working at a bar south of the border when he came through. With a biker gang.” She added that last part pointedly, testing Isobel’s reaction.

  But Isobel just nodded as though that were totally interesting. “Sounds like love at first sight.”

  Ofelia smiled slowly. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  This seemed like a good time to transition into talking with Pops about weddings and love and shit, or whatever I had to do to butter him up for Ofelia’s announcement. “So you guys seem like you’re in it for the long haul,” I said.

  My sister hadn’t been broken when getting tortured by incubi yet as soon as I brushed against the real reason for the meeting, she diverted the conversation. “Same with you two? Love at first sight, Ceez?”

  “Not exactly,” Isobel said.

  At the exact same time, I said, “Yeah.”

  We looked at each other.

  Isobel was smiling again, that weird soft smile. “Really?”

  Had it been just the two of us, I’d have pointed out that she’d been shirtless the first time we met, and I tended to fall in love instantly with any woman who let me see her boobies.

  “There’s a story there if I’ve ever heard one,” Pops said.

  I clenched my jaw to keep from saying boobies.

  “Cèsar attempted to arrest me,” Isobel said. “I was performing freelance necromancy, and apparently it qualifies as ‘desecration of graves’ and it’s ‘against the law.’”

  Ofelia propped her chin on her knuckles, looking impressed. “Necromancy? Really?”

  “Don’t go talking about magic too much now,” Pops said. “Hawke women don’t do magic. You’ll get Ofelia all jealous.” Ofelia bit the inside of her cheek so hard that I could see the skin puckering.

  “No magic for the Hawke women?” Isobel asked. “I’m surprised. Cèsar’s so gifted with potions that I’d expect his sister to have skills of her own. Magic tends to run in families.”

  “Sure it does. But Hawke women don’t use it.” Pops gestured to the waiter. “You ever gonna take our orders? Steak and eggs for me and my boy here, and waffles for my girl.”

  “I don’t like waffles, Pops. I never have,” Ofelia said. She never even looked up from her plate.

  Pops didn’t hear her. When he’d twisted around to yell at the waiter, he’d spotted the TV.

  Gary Zettel’s press conference was on the TV.

  “The numbers of protesters on Capitol Hill have been greatly exaggerated by the media,” he snarled into his microphone. He looked all sweaty and glistening from the lights. Guy was not cut out to be the public face of anything. “We remain committed to protecting Americans from the preternatural scourge. The justice system will prevail.”

  That was not why Pops was staring.

  “That’s you,” he said, turning to Isobel.

  Indeed, she and Fritz were standing directly behind Zettel, right next to Tate Peterson. The HD camera saw everything. It saw the hair that curled over Fritz’s brow even though he’d tried to slick it back. It saw the glamours in Isobel’s hair.

  The camera saw Isobel leaning in for Fritz to whisper in her ear, and when they kissed on camera.

  Three very suspicious faces turned to look at Isobel and me.

  Isobel sighed, unpinned her hair, and let it fall loose around her shoulders. “Do you want to explain, Cèsar?”

  Explain what? The truth was so much crazier than fiction.

  Isobel wasn’t just someone I’d tried to arrest, but a zombie who’d lived two lives. She’d loved me in one of those lives and loved Fritz in another one. She didn’t want to give up either of us. So now we just kind of pretended nothing was happening.

  Because I was a chickenshit. Like Ofelia said.

  If I told them all that, they’d just hear confirmation of how chickenshit I was.

  “She’s a prostitute,” I blurted out.

  And now everyone was looking at me in shock—not just my tablemates, but the waiter who’d been refilling our waters, and the bartender.

  “Because my girlfriend did break up with me.” I stumbled over the words. “She broke up with me last night and I wanted to save face, so—hooker.”

  “That’s your boss with Isobel,” Pops said, pointing at the TV.

  “He referred her to me?” I suggested weakly.

  Isobel stood, and her elegant features were no longer formed into an affectionate smile. There was only rage. Pure rage. Her whole body hummed with the force of it. “So what, you’re not going to tell them the truth? You think that it’s less shameful to hire a sex worker than be with me in the open? Fuck you, Cèsar. Fuck. You.”

  I realized what she was going to do a millisecond before she turned the ice water upside-down over my lap. Just enough time to start to lean back, but not enough time to escape the deluge.

  Not-so-little Cèsar shriveled into a microscopic structure similar to a disappointed mushroom and crawled into my intestines.

  Isobel put her foot on the seat of my chair and shoved. I was already unbalanced, so that was all it took for me to fall backwards.

  It was a great angle for me to watch Isobel stomping away. I got a glimpse up her suit skirt and her clenched fist swung just a couple feet above my nose. And then she was gone, pushing aside a waiter to pummel the elevator button with her fist.

  My family stood too. “Clean yourself up, kid,” Pops said. “You’re a fucking waste.” He tossed his napkin onto the table and followed Isobel out—taking his Bloody Mary with him. Traitorous Ofelia and her husband weren’t far behind.

  Which left me on the floor, alone, getting stared at by all the wait staff.

  I tried to smile at them. “Check please?”

  Chapter 16

  A long shower did nothing for my pride.

  Coming out to find that Suzy was still MIA didn’t help either.

  And all the text messages from Pops… I wasn’t even going to look at those.

  If there were one person who would have understood all this, it would have been Fritz. Shame that Fritz wasn’t in the penthouse. It was, however, populated with government staff once again, including Agent Bryce and Janet. “I have news,” Agent Bryce said. “It’s something that I found in—”

  “What is it with women?” I asked as I passed her.

  She followed me into the kitchen. “Women?”

  “Yeah, women. The female of the species, which is deadlier than the male. What is up with women?”

/>   Agent Bryce gave me a blank look. “Well…”

  “I’ve never hit a woman,” I said. “I don’t push women. I don’t dump ice-cold water on women.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Most people don’t, sir. That’s considered normal behavior.”

  “Women hit me and dump water on me.”

  “It’s a little different.”

  “Is it? Is it really?” I pointed at the still soaking crotch of my pants. “I have been victimized. My turtle may never emerge from his shell again!”

  Her mouth worked, but no words came out at first. I’d never seen such a perfect example of what flabbergasted looked like. Then Agent Bryce said, “For your information, I’m documenting our interactions in case I need to speak with HR.”

  “Oh come on. It’s not like I’m trying to jab you with my snapping turtle.”

  “In professional work spaces, any amount of talking about your—your, uh, appendage is not appropriate. I find this whole conversation inappropriate, in fact. But if I may venture to provide a little support…” Agent Bryce white-knuckled her clipboard. “I’m sorry you got ice water poured on you. Sir.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Probably the only apology I’m going to get about that. At least womankind bred one decent human being! Someone who isn’t completely insane!”

  Her chin twitched. “Can we please redirect this terrible conversation to territory I won’t have to document for HR?”

  “Fine, yes.” I ripped paper towels off of the counter and tried to dry off my junk.

  “There’s been another major magical surge.”

  My head snapped up. “Why didn’t you mention that first?”

  Agent Bryce’s nostrils flared. She breathed very hard. “It’s already been addressed, sir. We found the circle of power. It had already been closed. The residue was unreadable. The curve of the magic surge on our charts was identical to the one in Los Angeles, however.”

  She showed her clipboard to me.

  I shot my wad of moistened towels into the trash and took it from her hands. “What’s all this? If each line graphs the strength of the magical surges, then why are there five if we’ve only had three?”

  “Those surges weren’t reported properly, but I found the data points and drew the parallel myself.” Agent Bryce looked uncomfortable for reasons that had nothing to do with my dick. “I’d prefer if you don’t show this chart to anyone else.”

  I nodded slowly as I skimmed the raw data. We’d only been able to collect “clean” information with our sensors when the magic was actively surging.

  Someone had been interfering with any investigation of these surges.

  Yeah, I wasn’t going to show Agent Bryce’s conclusions to anyone else.

  “There’s another thing.” She cleared her throat. “There was a dead body near last night’s surge. Human body. Someone on high ordered that the body should be released to the family without an autopsy. I hoped you could intercede.”

  “I don’t have authority to stop that release,” I said.

  “No,” Agent Bryce said slowly. “But you’re close with the necrocognitive—Isobel Stonecrow. You could interview the body before it’s out of our reach.”

  I pointed at my wet pants again. “She did this to me.”

  “Risking more ice water is worth gaining this information.”

  “Says you,” I muttered.

  But Agent Bryce was right. I needed to do something.

  Someone like Gary Zettel didn’t want me investigating these power surges, which meant that it was exactly where I needed to look.

  “When’s the transfer?” I asked.

  “I’m still working through a stack of paperwork that has delayed it. I’m having some difficulty contacting next of kin, too. You should have at least a day.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I stepped toward the door, but hesitated. “Hey Bryce? I’m sorry for all the shit I make you put up with. You handle it like a champ.”

  “I’d rather not handle it. I’d rather just come to work and do my job.”

  First I was a chickenshit, now I was sexually harassing my coworker—who I wasn’t even attracted to, for fuck’s sake. This was a bad week for Cèsar’s self esteem. Fuck everything. “Duly noted.”

  When I got back to my hotel room, Suzy still wasn’t there. Thankfully, neither was Lucrezia de Angelis, Isobel Stonecrow, or any other female bent on making me suffer.

  “Pick up your phone, fuck-face,” I said, listening to the line ring. I was calling Fritz. I was going to tell him everything, and that was final.

  Except he didn’t pick up.

  I called him again and still no answer.

  Whatever Fritz was up to, it was more interesting than me. Probably involved a sexy lobbyist or something, knowing him.

  “Damn it.”

  This time I left a message. Something along the lines of “Hey fuck-face, your wife ruined my life, and also we have to talk about dead bodies. Call me back.”

  I made a few more calls to Isobel and Suzy after that, but nobody answered. Not one goddamn person. I gave up once my pride had shriveled into a ball two sizes too small.

  If everyone was avoiding me, then I didn’t have any resources that Agent Bryce didn’t. The dearly departed was going to have to stay dear and departed for the time being.

  Someone had stolen guns from a Union facility. They might have been in protester hands right now, waiting for some new zealot to get trigger-happy. “That’s an easy place to start,” I muttered, cracking my knuckles.

  I searched the guns’ serial numbers, and I found that they’d all vanished from the database on the same day. From there, I searched for all employees assigned to that warehouse.

  The records came up redacted.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  A news alert pinged on my desktop. It was an OPA-wide email from Secretary Gary Zettel announcing that PRAY was about to go to the Supreme Court. This was its final battleground. Its fate would be decided by Justice Mendez and a stoner kid named Tate Peterson.

  Unless I gave Lucrezia to Gary Zettel.

  Lucrezia, who was my only contact for these missing guns.

  Finding who’d stolen the guns was most urgent. Cooper had drawn a connection between Lawrence Lefebvre and Weston Connors, so that was my starting point. It was time to visit the protesters’ HQ.

  The house that the protesters were using wasn’t much to look at—even worse than Pops’s motel. Peeling paint, leaning second story, windows boarded up. The snowy lawn had been trampled by foot traffic. Someone had pushed all the trash from the front yard into the back, though, so it did have some curb appeal.

  I was halfway up the path when the door creaked open and a woman stormed out.

  Ofelia Hawke.

  She was looking muted in a long jacket that hid whatever slutty bartender clothes she wore underneath. If it hadn’t been for the pierced pinky nail, she might have passed for a normal person.

  “You going somewhere?” I asked.

  She stopped right in front of me. “Yeah. I’m coming here to kick your ass.”

  “How the hell’d you see me coming?” There wasn’t a single window without plywood nailed over it.

  “Alarm spells, obviously,” she said.

  “You did that?”

  She made a disgusted sound. “Pops put them down. Not me.”

  “It’s not about the Hawke-women-don’t-cast thing,” I said. “I set up alarm spells around my hotel room and someone got in without the alarm going off. Just wondering how I fucked it up.”

  “You might not have,” Ofelia said. “Even the fanciest alarm spells can be thwarted with the right personal ward.”

  Lucrezia de Angelis must have had a personal ward. She wasn’t a witch, but like Fritz, she had enough money to hire great witches to do magic for her.

  The cogs were turning in my head. “How unusual are personal wards?”

  “Very,” Ofelia said bluntly. “Look, you’ve got a lot of
nerve coming here and mining me for information. Pops will eat your face off if he sees you. I’m thinking about doing it too.”

  “If this is Revenge of the Women, Episode Three, I’m not in the mood for it,” I said. “I’ve gotten enough shit from the other women in my life these last few days, and I’m fucking done, Ofelia. I’m done.”

  She folded her arms. “Even with me?”

  I hadn’t come here for more family drama. But I’d never been able to resist the urge to fight with my sister. “Especially with you. I stuck my neck out with Pops, did the breakfast you wanted—”

  “You lied to us,” Ofelia said.

  “Was I supposed to tell you I’m dating my boss’s wife? And that everyone knows about it, and everyone’s okay with it? It’s nobody’s fucking business!” I wished I hadn’t even known about it, for fuck’s sake.

  Ofelia’s anger faded. She started to smile. “I should have known. You’re polyamorous.”

  “I’m pissed, is what I am,” I said. A thought struck me. “Why should you have known?”

  “Call it a genetic predisposition,” she said.

  “If this is your way of telling me that you’re fucking seventeen guys other than your husband, save yourself the effort. I don’t want to know. And it’s fucking cute for you to get mad at me for lying. What is it you’re doing with the wedding thing, exactly? Why aren’t you telling Pops?”

  “Because I’m protecting myself.”

  “I was trying to do something like that too,” I said. “I was trying to protect myself from the exact clusterfuck I now have to deal with vis-a-vis Pops. You could be human and show sympathy for the shitstorm I’ll be facing, especially because you didn’t tell Pops the truth again.”

  She blew out a breath. It fogged around her face. “I know. I’m sorry. The thing is…” She braced herself like she was about to deliver really bad news. “Cooper is my mate. I’ve been practicing witchcraft, and we’re mated. Not just married. Mated. Hand-fasted. Our souls bonded for eternity.” She said it all at once, in a rush, like she had to get it out before she thought better of it.