Bitter Thirst

by SM Reine

  The tension melted out of Craig’s translucent shoulders. “Thanks.”

  Fritz slid his sunglasses off, fixing a hard gaze on Craig. “This part is very important, now. How did you die?”

  Craig’s face crumpled. “How did I…?”

  He shook his head. His whole body shook.

  “We can’t ask him that,” I muttered to Fritz.

  Suzy scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Let’s try this. Craig, were you with anybody except Weston? Did anybody help you cast that circle?”

  “I promised my parole officer I wouldn’t cast,” he said.

  Craig couldn’t lie. The dead were incapable. But he was avoiding the question.

  “Who are the last people you remember seeing?” Suzy pressed.

  “Weston,” Craig said. “Weston, when he promised I’d get all the money. And…” His throat seemed to close. He swallowed hard, but his form shimmered again. “And…”

  “All right, let’s not torture him. He’s already dead,” I said. “Where’s Weston Connors been staying?”

  “With the protesters. It’s this ugly house, full of trash in the back yard. Really drafty.”

  The house where the other circle had happened.

  My heart sank. “Where were you supposed to take the gun once you got it?”

  “Weston didn’t give me a target because that was going to be in the instructions. He just said it’d be like Lawrence.” Craig shimmered again, paler than before, dimmer. He looked like he wanted to cry. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “Didn’t have a choice?”

  “His magic is so strong,” Craig whispered.

  He vanished. Once he was gone, Isobel’s cheeks were tracked with tears.

  I’d have held her if she’d have put up with it.

  But it was Fritz that Isobel turned toward, Fritz whose hand she grasped, and Fritz she asked, “Can I go now?”

  Chapter 18

  Limousine rides after a séance are no fun at all.

  “I’ll have agents search the house the protesters are using,” Fritz said, slowly tapping out a message on his iPhone. Yes, the Blackberry loyalist had abandoned ship for Apple. The company, not the cult. He hated the on-screen keyboard. He made the exact same grumpy face every time he tried to write a message out.

  “Weston won’t be there,” I said.

  “Agent Bryce might find an indication of where he’s gone.” Fritz made an exasperated sound. “No, Autocorrect, I did not mean that. What demon possessed phone thinks I have anything to say about ducks?”

  “If you’re texting Agent Bryce, you shouldn’t drop any f-bombs,” I said. “She’s about to file a sexual harassment suit against me. It’ll just give her more fuel.”

  Suzy burst out laughing. “A sexual harassment suit? I’ve been waiting for one of the cunts in your department to fall under HR’s thumb.”

  Fritz erased his text and wrote a new one.

  “Speaking of Weston Connors, the witches who track his spells—could we redirect them?” I asked. “Could I have them searching for a specific personal ward?”

  “No,” Fritz said.

  I’d been expecting questions about why I wanted them, not a direct refusal. “But I’m pretty sure Lucrezia de Angelis has one. If we can track the ward…”

  “Then we find her for Zettel,” Fritz said. “It’s a good idea, Cèsar, but it’s not possible. There’s too much scrutiny right now to use our resources for under-the-table maneuvers.”

  I wasn’t used to caution from my kopis. It was weird. Usually he was the one talking me into trouble. “But what if we—?”

  “He said no.” Isobel was curled against Fritz’s side, ankles tucked underneath her, staring out the window.

  I didn’t like seeing her like that. Didn’t like her being so upset at me. We didn’t fight much these days, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

  An apology would be a good start.

  “Isobel,” I began.

  “Don’t,” she said without glancing my way.

  Fine. Trying to apologize to my not-girlfriend in a limousine full of people would have sucked anyway.

  “Where have you been lately, Fritz?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you around since we met with Tate.”

  “I’ve been trying to pull a case together against H.R. 2076. If I make a presentation about the myriad ways it will damage American life as we know it, then Tate Peterson can be compelled to stop PRAY,” he said. “Did you realize the bill itself is over five hundred pages? My God, it’s a doorstopper. I’ve got all the new hires combing through it.”

  “Nice effort, but I don’t think it’s going to do anything to change Tate’s mind,” I said.

  Fritz tossed his iPhone onto the seat across from him. “This is where my talents are best directed, Cèsar. Gary Zettel has no interest in cooperating with me. I’ve no idea where Lucrezia de Angelis has gone.”

  “My bedroom,” I said.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Isobel said. “How many women are you hiding in your closet?”

  I held up my hands in a defensive gesture. “She invaded. She told me Gary Zettel is the reason that the protesters are armed—that he’s the one who wants to discredit them. It’s a PR move. Just like Tate’s tour around the country to drum up support for preternatural regulation.” I took a deep breath, let it out. “Lucrezia confessed to leading the Apple.”

  Nobody looked surprised.

  “It makes sense,” Fritz said. “The Apple worships the likes of Lucrezia. I hoped that her drive for wealth was higher than her drive for domination, but…”

  “The Apple worships Lucrezia?” Isobel asked. She made an ugly scowl, which was impressive, because Isobel was not an ugly woman. Not even a little bit.

  “She’s a half-angel,” Fritz said.

  “I knew it,” Suzy said, elbowing me hard.

  He frowned. “Is this news to you two? Her name is Lucrezia de Angelis. It would be as though my name were Fritz von Wealthy Man.”

  Suzy looked smug. “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “Yeah, but Isobel isn’t a crow made of stone,” I pointed out. “Names aren’t always descriptive.”

  Izzy didn’t smile. “Member of the Apple or not, we already knew Lucrezia was evil. Her flavor of evil doesn’t matter. What’s the next move?”

  “I can’t find Lucrezia de Angelis yet, so I’ve got to find Weston Connors,” I said. “He might have the guns. He’ll definitely have answers. Suzy, can you help me do a locating spell? Without getting help from OPA employees?”

  “If I’ve got the right supplies,” she said. “I’ll need access to OPA storage rooms at the very least.”

  I wasn’t going to give Fritz a chance to refuse. “Shouldn’t be a problem now that the team’s all together. Can she have one of your glamour charms?” I asked, gesturing to Izzy’s hair.

  Isobel’s hand flew to the various beads and feathers she was wearing. “What? Why?”

  “Suzy’ll do the best spell-crafting if she can check out the storerooms herself. And if she’s disguised, she’s safer.”

  “Why the fuck should I give anything to Agent Takeuchi?” Isobel asked.

  It sounded so harsh coming from her. Swearing was my favorite goddamn pastime, but Isobel was usually gentler. To get her all but spitting in anger like that actually made me step back.

  Although I was still a little bit aroused. Just a tiny bit.

  “I need her help,” I said.

  “Oh, so Agent Takeuchi is going to help people now?” Isobel asked. “Because it seems to me like the only thing she’s been doing lately is hiding while other people get killed fighting the fight on the front lines.”

  “Whoa, Izzy,” I said. “Suzy wasn’t hiding because she’s a coward. Belphegor almost killed her. The OPA wants to arrest her for crimes she didn’t commit.”

  Suzy was turning red. Her fists were clenched at her sides. “Forget it, Cèsar.”
r />   “Come on, Izzy,” I said.

  “Don’t ‘Come on, Izzy’ at me,” Isobel snapped. “You and Fritz have been fighting the OPA from the inside without her help. We’ve all been in the open, at risk. You don’t need her help now. We don’t need her.”

  “We don’t need her on any investigation where we want to die. Fritz, tell Isobel how many times Suzy has saved our asses.”

  Fritz slouched against the seat in that suave billionaire model way. I could tell he was tense though. This conversation was getting to him, and he wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. “She has saved us, but…”

  “Why are you siding with her?” Isobel asked me, looping her arm through Fritz’s.

  “I’m not siding with anyone,” I said. “There are no sides. It’s a circle and we’re all working on the same thing. It makes sense to pool our resources.”

  The limousine stopped in the basement parking garage. The blood had been all washed away, so there was no sign of Lawrence Lefebvre anymore.

  “I’m not giving Agent Takeuchi anything,” Isobel said.

  “I don’t want your stupid racist ‘shaman’ magic anyway,” Suzy snapped. To me, she growled, “I told you they wouldn’t be happy to see me. They never liked me.”

  She stormed out of the limousine. Probably going back to my room, and my closet, where she could get to her safe haven of a cave to brood. “Suzy,” I called after her, but she walked fast on those stubby little legs.

  “What is this, Cèsar?” Isobel asked. She didn’t move to get out of the limousine. “You’re ashamed of me, but not her? And after everything we’ve done together.”

  “You’re the one making ultimatums. If you make me choose, then hell yeah, I’m going to choose Suzy. Don’t be a dick.” I probably could have said something more sensitive, especially since I still owed a hundred thousand apologies to Isobel. But she really was being a dick.

  Isobel looked at me like she’d never seen me before. “You’re not taking this seriously at all. This really means nothing to you. You, me, Fritz…”

  “There is no ‘you, me, Fritz,’” I said.

  Her whole body drooped. “I see.”

  I slid out of the limousine, leaning down to look at Isobel and Fritz through the door.

  “I’m sorry for being a jackass at breakfast,” I said. “I am. But don’t take it out on Suzy.”

  And I followed her upstairs.

  Suzy hadn’t locked the door to the Batcave, so I took that to mean I was welcome to visit. The sound of gunfire greeted me when I got into the pocket dimension. Suzy was unloading magazine after magazine into a target shaped like a human.

  She wore ear protection but still knew I was coming. She ejected an empty magazine and set the gun down before turning to face me. Her eyes were all red. “What the fuck?” Suzy asked.

  “Isobel tried to come help me at the family breakfast by playing girlfriend, and I may have accidentally told them she’s a hooker.”

  I expected Suzy to laugh.

  Her hand twitched for the gun she’d set down.

  “They’re called sex workers,” she said. “Not hookers, not whores. Sex workers. And Isobel’s a gold digger, not a sex worker. There’s a difference.”

  Isobel needed Fritz’s money the way that I needed a solid gold butthole. “I just didn’t know how to tell Pops that she’s…that I’m… Isobel is married to Fritz. And Fritz and I are kopis and aspis.”

  “Which is more permanent than marriage,” Suzy said. That was part of the old saying about kopides and aspides. More fatal than family, more permanent than marriage, something-something the end. It was an easy way for prospective aspides to wrap their heads around the gravity of the kopis-aspis bond.

  “Yeah, so whatever the three of us have going on, it’s weird and it’s permanent,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain it to anyone. I don’t have words for it myself.”

  “Weird is a good word,” Suzy said.

  “It’s a whole fucking lot to get comfortable with, that’s what it is. If I told Pops that I’ve fucked up my love life, he’ll start thinking about Mom and Dad again. He’ll think I’m about to dump an illegitimate child in his lap and go to prison. He’ll be pissed.”

  “That’s a leap,” Suzy said. “My therapist would say you’re catastrophizing.”

  “You have a therapist?”

  “I was imprisoned by the OPA and worked as a double agent for years. It was stressful. Plus I had to see a therapist in order to get benzos.”

  “You’re addicted to benzos and alcohol? Suzy…”

  “I’m off benzos now. Try finding a pharmacy in my pocket dimension.” She rolled her eyes. “So you lied about Isobel, but you were going to tell Pops about me.”

  “Sure. Fuck me, Suzy, you are the coolest fucking badass I know. I’m about a thousand degrees cooler just by standing in the same room as you. I’d be really lucky for my family to think I’m with you.”

  Her face had only turned redder. “Even though you told my parents how repulsive I am.”

  “Whoa, what?” That wasn’t how I remembered the night going.

  Suzy’s hand twitched for the gun again. “You said you’d never be with someone like me.”

  “I’m pretty sure I said you’d never be with someone like me,” I said. “You’re amazing, Suze. Absolutely amazing.”

  Her eyes softened. “I am?”

  “Mostly,” I said.

  “Huh.” She scuffed her foot on the cave floor. “Go on.”

  “You know how much I missed you after you were gone? No more magic lessons, no more visits to the shooting range together, no more getting punched in the arm all the time… God damn it, I missed you. I just didn’t want your family thinking that you were stupid enough to date me.”

  “Maybe I am stupid enough,” she said.

  Suzy grabbed me by the ears, yanked my head down, and kissed me.

  She kissed a lot like she punched. Which was to say, there was one hell of an impact in a single blow.

  I’d have expected nothing less from her.

  But I grabbed Suzy and pushed her away. “What’s this?”

  “What’s it look like?” she demanded. “I’m making a move on you.” Her fingernails dug in to my hips. Suzy had fingernails? Suzy was a girl?

  “Since when are you attracted to me?” I asked.

  “Try forever,” Suzy said.

  Really? That was impossible to believe. “I had no idea.”

  She gave me one of those Looks. The ones that made it look much more like she was contemplating murder rather than making out with me. “How many times have I told you that you’re hot?”

  “You were always drunk,” I said.

  Suzy forced a loud laugh. “Okay, how about all those times I grabbed your butt?”

  “You were drunk then too,” I said. “And every time you caught me looking at your ass, you got mad at me.”

  “Because you were staring. Doesn’t mean I don’t like it. And anyway, what about when I talked about how much I want your dick?”

  “You said you wanted to skin my dick,” I said.

  “I came back to you. Not the OPA, not to your kopis and his wife, not to my friends, or even my family, but to you. I wouldn’t have come back at all if I didn’t want your dick.”

  She was so blunt about it. It was crass and a little gross.

  It completely worked for me on every level.

  Except for one thing.

  “Suze, I don’t know about this.”

  “I think you do,” she said, grabbing me through my pants.

  “Okay, he wakes up for everything. I once grabbed a bottle of Aunt Jemima and got a stiffy.”

  “She’s a hot bitch,” Suzy said. “What’s the problem?”

  “Well…” There was no way to say what I was thinking without going into emotional territory Suzy wouldn’t like. But fuck it. “You’re my friend, Suze. A great friend. Great partner. I don’t want to fuck it up.”

  “N
o need to be dramatic about it,” she said, but she was giving me one of those nice smiles again, which she never used to aim in my direction.

  Suzy being nice to me.

  It was even weirder than getting to kiss her.

  “This doesn’t ruin anything,” she said. “We’re going to fuck and it’s going to be awesome. Only one rule here. You ready for it?”

  “I didn’t bring a condom down,” I said. “I can go get one.”

  “Okay, two rules.” Suzy yanked my belt open. “First one is condoms, always. Babies are gross. Second one is that I’m not sharing you with Isobel Stonecrow. I don’t fight over men. I don’t do drama. I’m not a sixteen year old. You want me or you don’t, and you don’t get to tell me no and change your mind later. This is it. Decide if you—”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I want you.” Easiest answer ever.

  “That’s what I fucking thought,” she said.

  So it turned out that Suzy had managed to get a nice bed in her cave. She introduced me to it by flinging me onto the mattress with surprising strength for a five-foot-tall witch, although it sure helped that I was willing.

  Suzy kneeled over me while she took her shirt off, and I finally got to see them.

  The boobs.

  There have been a lot of great boobs in my life. Cassie Runyon, I haven’t forgotten you. The cleavage, the heft, the color of ‘em. She’d been the first girl to let me see her tits in high school and they’d left an impression. And then there was Isobel, who had such fantastic breasts that she seemed physically incapable of hiding them with a shirt.

  My expectations for Suzy were high. I’d spent a lot of time sneaking looks at them over the years.

  The reality was even better.

  I only got a moment to enjoy the look of them, and then I couldn’t resist letting myself absorb the smell, the taste. I was inhaling her skin and yanking off those unflattering slacks and discovering that Suzy was going commando.

  “Whoa,” I said. “No underwear?”

  “No Victoria’s Secrets in the pocket dimension either,” Suzy said. “There are razors but I don’t shave because, as I said, I’m not a child, and women have body hair, goddammit.”