Deadly Spells

by Jaye Wells

  It was Jade who broke the bubble. “What kind of evidence?”

  “A note that contained the quote Swift, Hard, and Absolute.”

  Jade frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s from the interview with Grace that ran last night,” he said. “I was referring to how we’d deal with the culprit behind the coven violence. Obviously someone took exception to my strong words.”

  I snorted and stared at him. “Someone, right.”

  “What are you implying, Detective?”

  “That you know exactly who killed Cho.”

  Volos stared back at me with a placid expression.

  “That’s preposterous,” Jade said, all indignation.

  “Is it?” Morales asked Volos.

  “I assure you if I had evidence pertaining to a murder I would have come to you.”

  I arched a brow. “You may not be able to prove who killed her, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know.”

  “You obviously have a point to make.” Volos crossed his arms. “So make it.”

  “We believe that the murderer wasn’t responding to the interview last night so much as upping his game,” I said. “Killing Charm and attacking Harry Bane didn’t get the results he wanted so he decided to kick the hornet’s nest.”

  “Who?” Jade said, sounding exasperated.

  “Hector Souza.” I watched Volos as I said the name. Again, he betrayed nothing.

  “Who the hell is that?” Jade demanded.

  “He works for the Brazilian cartel. Goes by the street name Pantera,” Morales said. “We’ve linked him to at least two murders—three if our hunch about Grace Cho proves correct.”

  “What does this have to do with John?” She shot him a sideways glance, but he was too busy looking unaffected to acknowledge her.

  “That was our question,” I said. “Why would a cartel hit man want to send a message to Babylon’s mayor?”

  “I can’t wait to hear your theories, Detective,” Volos said, his tone full of patronizing humor.

  I sighed and crossed my arms. “We thought A Morte was simply trying to get a cut of the action by destabilizing the covens.”

  “By starting a war,” Morales added.

  I nodded. “But that never really materialized except for a couple of breakouts of violence. Then I was talking to someone who knows a thing or two about criminal strategies—”

  “Who?” Volos interrupted.

  “Abe.”

  He laughed. “Great sources you got there, Kate.”

  I ignored him. “And he asked me a question I couldn’t answer—at least not at the time.”

  “Which was?” he asked.

  “Who in Babylon had the most to lose if the covens went to war?”

  A muscle in his jaw jerked. I forged ahead. “Even if we believed Pantera’s aim was to start a coven war, we couldn’t figure out why he’d chosen now to make his move. Abe’s been in jail for years, and Ramses Bane died almost six months ago. So why now?”

  Volos didn’t take the bait. He just stared me down, daring with his gaze to make my move. I took the opportunity with relish.

  “Did you know Charm was killed the night of your inauguration ball?”

  Jade snorted. “Please, Detective. Unless you have more to go on than wild speculation, you’re wasting our time.”

  “Did you also know we suspect your own cousin is helping Pantera Souza?”

  Volos’s face tightened with anger. “Puck?”

  I nodded. “I figured he was just being ambitious, trying to carve out a leadership role that Charm had denied him.”

  He raised a brow. “But?”

  “When we questioned him, Puck had a lot of choice words about how you were a traitor to the coven. Not hard to believe that someone who hates you so much would go along with a cartel plot to bring you down.”

  Jade sputtered. “This is preposterous. You have yet to do anything besides spout theories and conjecture, Detective.”

  I held up a hand. “John is the city’s first Adept mayor, and he ran on an anticrime platform. Seems he’d have the most to lose if a major outbreak of Arcane violence rocked the city.”

  “The only question we can’t answer,” Morales said, “is why A Morte would go to such lengths to discredit Volos as mayor?”

  Volos remained as locked down as Fort Knox. I chewed my lip for a moment. “How long until he comes at you directly?” I asked. His eyes hardened. “Cho’s death will be all over the news, along with the juicy note referencing your interview. That’s bad enough. But it’s not long until Pantera gets tired of playing games and decides to get real.”

  “I’d say it’s already pretty fucking real,” Morales said.

  I nodded. “You’re going to be so busy managing the media hurricane Souza whipped up that you won’t have time to find him on your own.” I crossed my arms. “But the MEA is already focused on this case. We just need a break that will help us shut him down.”

  He started to talk, but hesitated when Jade cleared her throat.

  “Let us help you.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue. If he was as deep in the Souza case as I believed, he deserved to spend his days in a prison jumpsuit. But we could stop Pantera without knowing the full story, so I was prepared to play the empathy card if it got us what we needed. “We can make this go away for you.”

  “That’s enough,” Jade said. “As Mayor Volos’s attorney I’m not going to stand here and let you accuse—”

  “If I tell you what I know,” Volos cut in, “I’ll need assurances.”

  Jade’s mouth fell open. I raised my brow. “What kind of assurances?”

  “That you won’t use what I’m about to tell you to bring me up on charges.”

  For the first time that day, Morales smiled. “Why, Mr. Mayor, why on earth would you need amnesty?”

  Volos shot Morales a look that would have made lesser men quake. But Drew Morales had faced down scarier characters than John Volos. Men who’d cut out your tongue for such an offense.

  “Pardon us a moment.” Jade grabbed John’s sleeve and pulled him away. They walked around the corner. Her higher-pitched voice spoke rapidly. Occasionally his deeper voice would issue a calm response.

  Morales raised his brow at me. “What do you think?”

  I shrugged. “If he won’t tell us now, we’ll come back with a warrant.”

  He shook his head. “No, I mean do you think he knows why A Morte’s after him?”

  “Of course he does.” My confidence wasn’t born of any sort of sixth sense. Men like John Volos didn’t gain power without knowing their enemies better than they knew their allies. Whatever he and Jade were arguing about would provide the answers to A Morte’s motivations. I knew that as surely as I knew Volos would stop at nothing to win Pantera’s deadly game.

  Before Morales could respond to my comment, Volos came back around the corner with Jade trailing him. She’d lost some of the confidence in her step. His shoulders were back and his chin high.

  “Well?” Morales prompted.

  Volos nodded toward Jade. She hesitated and then walked out of the room. I didn’t see where she went, but a few seconds after she disappeared I heard a door open and close down the hall.

  “Before I tell you what I need to tell you, the three of us need to come to an agreement.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” I said. “If you have information that can aid us in making a case against a murderer, then you’re legally obligated to share it.”

  “Not if I plead the Fifth, Detective,” he said, putting mocking emphasis on my title.

  “I got five for you, asshole,” Morales said, clenching his fist. I shot him a warning glare.

  “Why would you need Fifth Amendment protection, Mr. Mayor?” I said sweetly. “I thought you were legit now.”

  “Therein lies the rub, Detective. In order to tell you that, I’m going to need assurances that you won’t turn around and use what I’m about to tell you to buil
d an obstruction case against me.”

  “You’re putting us in an impossible position,” I said. “How can we agree not to use it against you before we know what it is? What if you’re about to admit you killed Cho?”

  Volos shot me a pitying look. “Don’t insult me, Katherine.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Watch your tone.”

  At that moment, Jade came back in carrying a file folder. She handed it to Morales. I glanced questioningly at Volos. He shrugged. “Like I said: assurances.”

  Morales opened the folder. As he read the contents, his expression didn’t change, but a muscle in his jaw pulsed.

  Volos crossed his arms, and when he looked at me his expression was stony. “Do we understand each other?”

  I wasn’t sure what was in that folder, but I knew enough about some of the skeletons in my partner’s closet to fear what would happen if Volos shared the contents with the MEA—or God forbid, the media.

  “Thank you,” Morales said. Volos shot my partner a questioning look. “You’ve just confirmed my complete lack of faith in politicians.”

  Volos’s expression tightened. “Do we have a deal?”

  Morales slammed his folder shut and tossed it to me. My fingers fumbled in my haste to open it. Inside, I found a dossier on Morales. But it was the second page that made me curse out loud. It was a sworn statement by a wizard named Gan Ji, a member of the Fangshi Coven in Los Angeles. According to his sworn statement, he’d witnessed Morales helping leaders of the Fangshi cover up the death of a cop.

  I looked up from the damning document to glare at Volos. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Do we have an understanding?” he asked.

  Morales executed a curt nod. “This better be good.” He crossed his arms, as if he didn’t trust himself not to punch the mayor.

  “Kate?” Volos prompted.

  I folded the file between my arms. “Oh, I understand perfectly.” There was no anger in my tone—just resignation. Knowing Volos, he had files on every power player in Babylon as an insurance policy for instances just like this one. He raised a brow to indicate that my retort hadn’t been enough of an assurance. “I promise we won’t arrest you for this crime.”

  The corner of Volos’s mouth quirked as he turned toward the breakfast bar and lifted a glass. He held it up, as if to offer a drink to everyone else. Morales and I just stared at him. He shrugged and poured himself a mimosa. I knew he was stalling, but didn’t comment. I wasn’t too excited to hear what he was about to say. Any information that required the threat of blackmail wasn’t going to be good news.

  Morales, however, had had enough. “Time’s ticking, Volos.”

  “Fine,” he said. Clearly he knew better than to push us any further. “Do you recall the potion that was stolen from my lab about six months ago?”

  I frowned. “You mean the truth serum Dionysus used on us?”

  After he’d kidnapped Morales and me, Dionysus had pumped us full of a truth serum that caused severe pain if we lied. The effects of the potion hadn’t lasted long, but while it worked it had been excruciating. That was why I wasn’t shocked to read the Fangshi wizard’s statement. Morales had admitted to covering up that murder under the influence of Volos’s potion. That’s also how I knew the statement hadn’t told the whole truth. According to Morales, who was unable to lie because of the potion, the cop who’d been murdered was dirty.

  Anyway, back when it had been stolen, Volos admitted to me that he’d made the potion for a well-paying mystery client.

  Volos tipped his chin. “After hearing how it was used on you, I destroyed the formula and refused to deliver a new batch to the people who asked me to develop it.”

  I closed my eyes and cursed. “Let me guess—the people who hired you were members of A Morte?”

  He was silent so long, I opened my eyes again. Finally, he said, “I didn’t know it was them until it was too late.”

  “Bullshit,” Morales said. “You honestly expect us to believe you didn’t vet the request?”

  “The man who commissioned the potion was a wizard who worked for the Department of Defense. He had legit credentials. Said he’d been tasked with making the potion to use as an alternative to torture during interrogations on enemy combatants.”

  “That was what you called an alternative to torture?” I asked, incredulous. When I’d tried to resist the effects of the potion, it had felt like razor blades stabbing at my gut.

  “It was still in the testing phase when the formula was stolen,” he said.

  “So how did we get here?” Morales asked.

  “About a week after Halloween the man who’d hired me started calling. I’ll admit I avoided his attempts to contact me. But in my defense, I’d just thrown my hat in the ring for mayor and was pretty preoccupied.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “in January the fed wiz finally showed up on my doorstep. He was pretty agitated and demanded I hand over the formula immediately. Since he put me on the spot, I admitted I’d destroyed it.”

  “What did he do?” Morales asked.

  “He pulled a gun on me.”

  My brows rose. “I bet that went over well.”

  The only confirmation was a slight uptilt of his mouth. “Once I showed the gentleman the error of his ways, he admitted that he’d been hired by A Morte. He’d promised them he’d deliver the formula by the New Year. When it didn’t appear, they started putting on the pressure.”

  “Wait,” I said, “did A Morte know he’d hired you?”

  “Good question.” Volos smiled. “No. They’d hired him and given him a hefty down payment to come up with the formula. He couldn’t make it work and came to me.”

  “Stupid bastard,” I said.

  Volos nodded. “About two weeks after he confronted me, I saw a report in the paper about the death of a DoD wizard. I called in a few favors to get the full story. The body had been found in his garage. He’d had multiple nail gun wounds, including one to the skull.”

  Morales crossed his arms. “Let me guess. It was ruled a suicide?”

  Volos nodded. “The cartel’s reach is vast.”

  I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and released it. “And it didn’t occur to you then to cover your ass by coming to us and telling us what you knew?”

  “Once I saw he was dead, I figured I was free and clear,” Volos said. “Until I saw the board at MEA headquarters covered in your theories about Pantera Souza being the killer.”

  “Any idea how they found out he’d hired you?” Morales asked.

  “Best guess is he admitted he’d outsourced it to me to try to save his own ass.” Volos shook his head. “Regardless, I thought calling them out in the media might make them back down, but I… miscalculated.”

  “Jesus, Volos.” I laughed humorlessly. “Your shitty error got Grace Cho tortured and murdered.”

  Jade’s face fell at the mention of torture. My conscience flared to life, but we were beyond sugarcoating the situation to protect the lawyer’s delicate sensibilities.

  “Why didn’t you come to us earlier?” I demanded. “We could have—”

  “What, Kate? What would you have done differently?” he challenged. “How does this change the fact that you haven’t been able to catch this guy?”

  I threw up my hands. “Don’t turn this on us, Volos. If you hadn’t been so fucking greedy you wouldn’t have A Morte on your ass and this town wouldn’t be dealing with a coven war.”

  He tilted his head. “I’m not so sure that’s the case. A Morte has wanted their fingers in the Cauldron for decades. I simply offered them the excuse they needed to make their move.”

  “Abe wouldn’t deal with them,” I said. “Any idea why?”

  He held up his hands. “You mean what you’ve seen so far isn’t enough of a reason?”

  I shrugged. “Please, Abe would do business with the devil himself if he thought he’d turn a profit.”

  Volos looked like he was weighing the risks of bull
shitting me. But I shot him a look that clearly communicated I’d reached my limit for the day. Finally, he sighed. “It has to do with an old beef between Abe and the leader of the supercoven in New York.”

  The phone on Volos’s hip started ringing. He checked the screen quickly, but muted the ringer. “My office,” he said. “We need to wrap this up. If the media and BPD have figured out my connection to Cho’s murder, I’m about to be swamped.”

  I frowned. “You were saying about the Quincunx?”

  Unlike Babylon, which had three main covens ruling most of the dirty magic trade in the city, in New York the Quincunx Coven ran everything.

  Volos nodded. “The leader of the Fives,” he said, using the street name for the New York supercoven, “is an old enemy of Abe’s. And since the Fives have ties to the cartel, Abe refused to work with the Brazilians.”

  “Who’s the leader?” Morales asked.

  Volos smiled tightly. “I don’t know.” He was lying, but I had a feeling he’d reached his limit that day, too. I shot Morales a look to let it go; the Quincunx wasn’t the focus of our investigation.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “So our best guess is that A Morte’s pissed at you. They figured they’d knock you out of the mayor’s office and take a piece of the potion trade while they’re at it.” As much as I wanted to pin the blame entirely on Volos’s back, it had really only been a matter of time until the power vacuums created a coven war.

  Volos’s home phone rang this time. At the same time, Jade’s cell chirped from her hand. Volos looked at us. “If that’s all, I need to plan a press conference to get ahead of this story.”

  “We’re not done with this,” Morales snapped.

  Volos moved toward the living room and clicked some buttons on a remote. A screen lowered from the ceiling. Another button resulted in three video boxes appearing—each filled with local newscasts. The screen lit up with images of Cho’s murder scene, headshots of Volos, and anchors speculating about the mayor’s connection to the death.

  We all watched the circus in silence for a moment before Jade’s phone screamed again. She looked down at the screen and read the incoming text before speaking. “BPD’s on their way now to question you.”