Fire Water

by Jaye Wells

  He nodded and looked at the river. Even thought we were upstream from the worst of the pollution, the water moved sluggishly, as if it simply had lost the will to flow. “Sure beats spending my time on this watery graveyard. Last time I tried to fish the Steel, all I got for my efforts was an old boot, a dead bird, and three bloated fish.”

  My mouth curled up. “Gross.”

  “No shit.” He smiled at me. “You know, you might be all right after all, Prospero.”

  I tilted my head. “I’m a little offended you thought otherwise.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t blame me. When they told me I was getting a rookie, that was bad enough. But then one of the boys from the academy warned me you had a chip on your shoulder about being an Adept and all.”

  I crossed my arms defensively. “I do not.”

  He quirked a gray brow at me. “Sure ya do, but it doesn’t matter really. One thing I learned being a cop in this town is everyone’s lugging around baggage. The trick is you can’t let it trip you up when things really matter.”

  He put the box back in his windbreaker and lifted his face to the sky. Sucking in a lungful of the sun-drenched air, he smiled. “Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else about my plan. I’m still waiting on the paperwork to go through.”

  I nodded. “Understood.”

  “All righty.” He stepped onto the boat. “Untie that line and we’ll shove off.”

  I smiled after the man. As it turned out, he wasn’t so bad after all, either. “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

  The next day rain made traveling up and down the river a real pain in the ass. A yellow slicker covered my clothes, making me look like a large, annoyed banana. But the rain wasn’t the only source of my frustration. I’d been on river patrol duty for four days. In that time, we’d done little more than float up and down the water. In fact, the only excitement we’d seen in the last few days was when a boater got himself caught on a sandbar and we’d had to tow him off.

  I coiled the rope and threw the end on top of the pile. With a sigh, I lifted my head and looked up at the steel-gray clouds.

  “What crawled up your rear end?” Cap’n said in a gruff tone. He stood in the wheelhouse where the rain couldn’t touch him.

  “I’m just wondering when we’ll do something exciting.”

  “Rookies,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Once you been on the force awhile, you’ll learn to appreciate slow days.”

  I threw up my hands. “Do you honestly expect me to believe there aren’t any crimes happening on this river?”

  He shook his head. “You seen any?”

  I stepped out of the rain, shaking the wetness from my hair. “How would we know? We haven’t investigated anything.”

  The boat was crawling through the waters down near the abandoned steel factories. The old buildings loomed like metal giants along the shores. Instead of barges loaded with ore or metal girders, the water was filled with discarded trash, dead fish, and a thick oil slick.

  “Look around you, girl. Nothing to investigate. This river died a long time ago.”

  I wanted to tell him that the river might have died, but we were still alive. But I knew I’d be skirting too close to talking about the reasons he’d been put on river patrol to begin with. Instead, I said, “I’m just saying that we should be doing more. I’ve seen plenty of boats tied up along the shore. Surely someone’s committing a crime in one of them.”

  He chuckled. “So what? You want to just stop at every boat and search them illegally in case someone’s breaking a law?”

  His patronizing tone made me feel small. I knew he saw me as an inexperienced rookie with nothing useful to share. But I’d lived in Babylon my whole life. I knew lots of criminals used the river as a sort of bandit highway. My uncle Abe had used small boats to ship potions to other towns and also to receive illicit ingredients from elsewhere.

  “You might have decided to just waste the rest of your time until retirement fishing and shooting the shit with the guy at the bait shop, but I’m here to learn about law enforcement.”

  He looked at me from underneath his bushy eyebrows. I couldn’t read his expression except to know that he wasn’t pleased. “You want to go looking for trouble, maybe you should have shadowed the Arcane squad or homicide.”

  I didn’t mention that I’d done the more exciting details, but they’d made me sit on the sidelines, too. Instead, I plopped my ass onto my bucket and shut my mouth. I couldn’t risk antagonizing him further and getting a bad report.

  The only sounds were the water splashing against the hull and the whirring of the boat’s motor. Up ahead, the steel girders of the Bessemer Bridge spanned the river. Tires bumping over the bridge’s seams added a rhythmic pulse to the river soundtrack.

  Passing under the bridge meant we were officially entering the Cauldron section of the river. The factories of earlier gave way to tenements and shantytowns along the river’s edge. Here the water was even more polluted, as it was downriver from the industrial section.

  The bucket was digging into me, so I rose to stretch. I pulled off the slicker and hung it from a hook. I leaned against the wall, looking out the window toward the shore. I’d grown up in the Cauldron, but I’d never had much chance to look at it from the water.

  A tent city sat on the shoreline. A few people with stooped shoulders and the paleness that came with malnutrition moved in and out of the ramshackle shelters. A few trash cans dotted the slope, but no fires were lit that rainy day.

  “You grew up around here?” Cap’n asked quietly. I glanced over and saw his gaze on the tent city, too.

  I nodded and watched a woman carry a crying toddler into a drooping tent.

  “Votary Coven?”

  I glanced up quickly. “How did you—”

  He nodded toward my left wrist. “The tattoo.”

  I looked down at the crowned Ouroboros coiled around my wrist. I’d gotten the tattoo on my sixteenth birthday, just after I’d become a made member of the coven. It had once been the proudest day of my life. But that accomplishment had been knocked down the list after I left the coven.

  “Also your last name was a clue,” he added. “You’re related to Abraxas, right?”

  My lips turned down into a frown. “His niece.” I looked him in the eye, daring him to think less of me.

  Instead, he simply nodded. “When did you leave the coven?”

  “Five years ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone I loved died.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I couldn’t stay after that.”

  I didn’t mention that the person who died had been my mother, and the real reason I left was that she’d died from using one of the potions I’d cooked. It was easier to let people think grief chased me away instead of shame.

  “So how does a girl who grew up in one of the most powerful covens in Babylon end up becoming a cop?”

  I should have expected the question. Lord knew I’d been asked it dozens of times by classmates and superior officers. But I was tired of having to justify my reasons for trying to improve my life. “Why did you become a cop?” I asked, turning the table on the old man.

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “I wanted to kick ass and take names.”

  I tried to imagine the old man in his younger years. “How’d that work out for you?”

  He laughed and nodded down to his bum leg. “Worked out great…until it didn’t.”

  “What happened?”

  His gaze moved back toward the front of the boat. He fiddled with a couple of buttons before he responded. “Potion bust gone bad.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Sangs.”

  I looked away, but inside I wondered if I knew the person who’d put the bullet in my new boss. The Sangs were allies of the coven I’d grown up in, so chances were good. But I didn’t have the courage to ask the shooter’s identity. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for? You didn’t pull the trigger.” His tone was gruff. “Hell, you
hadn’t even gone through puberty when it happened.”

  I shrugged. “Just seemed like the right thing to say.”

  He chuckled. “Anyway, after the shooting, I guess the brass felt I wasn’t fit for patrol anymore. Been on this floating hunk of junk ever since.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “What? Patrol?”

  I nodded.

  A wry smile tilted up the corner of his mouth. “I don’t miss the bunions or having to hose vomit out of my car at the end of a shift. But, yeah, I miss it sometimes.”

  By that time, we were nearing the terminus where the river spilled into Lake Erie. Instead of continuing to ask him questions about what was obviously a sore subject, I quieted as he executed a turn to take the boat back upriver. I couldn’t help but think about how different we were. He was a gruff veteran who couldn’t wait to retire, and I was an ambitious rookie who was itching to hit the streets. To kick ass and take names, just as he’d once wanted to do.

  How would I handle it if a bullet took me out of the game? I liked to think I’d be more resilient and bounce back quickly.

  You let an injury take you out of a different game, my conscience whispered.

  I tried to suppress that traitorous voice. My mother’s death was different from Cap’n getting shot. It hadn’t been an injury but a wake-up call. Cooking potions had always been a game to me. A challenge. But once my mother died from a potion I’d cooked, I realized that if I didn’t leave she’d end up being the first of many, and I had a bad feeling eventually I’d be among the dead. Danny had been another factor in my decision to leave. I knew if we stayed he’d eventually be pulled into the game, too. And I couldn’t stand the idea of my sweet little brother being tainted by the greed and violence of the potion racket.

  “Prospero,” Cap’n said.

  I dragged myself out of the past and looked up at the man. He was looking out the window at something on the shore. “Yeah?”

  “You see that?”

  My gaze followed the finger he was pointing. We were passing the tent town again. Only this time, a motorboat that hadn’t been there the first time we’d passed bobbed at a makeshift dock. A lanky man with stringy black hair who wore a stained wife beater with baggy jeans stood on the deck of the boat. His friend was onshore speaking to the woman I’d seen earlier with the toddler. This guy was short with a beer belly straining the seams of his black T-shirt. He had on shorts and flip-flops, which sank into the thick mud.

  As we approached, we watched the shorter man hand something to the woman. She gave him something in return, which he quickly pocketed.

  “What do you think?” Cap’n said.

  I squinted at the men through a set of binoculars. The man on the boat had tattoos on his shoulders and arms. I could just make out the sickle-shaped alchemical symbol for lead on his left biceps. “My guess is Votary. But it’s hard to tell. The coven’s splintered since Uncle Abe was arrested. Could be self-starters.”

  Cap’n’s face changed with the mention of the Votary Coven. “You’re assuming they’re selling potions.”

  I lowered the binoculars. “They sure as shit aren’t selling her baby formula. Look at her. She’s got the shakes and her skin is covered in lesions.” Potion addicts usually had sores on their skin and irises ringed light blue. If I had to guess, the woman in question hadn’t been freaking for too long; otherwise she’d have exhibited more extreme outward signs of addiction, such as oddly tinted skin or limb mutations.

  “I’m not buying it,” he said dismissively.

  “Oh come on! A child could tell there’s a potion deal going down.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t have probable cause.”

  I pointed a finger at the trio. “We just watched the short guy sell her a potion. That’s beyond probable cause.”

  Cap’n ignored me and steered the boat toward the center of the river. My mouth fell open as he throttled the engine. The pair on the speedboat turned to watch us speed by. The tall one even had the balls to wave at us.

  “Turn this boat around so we can go question them,” I demanded.

  Cap’n shook his head. “It’s getting late. Got to get you back to the dock to clock out for the day.”

  “Screw the clock. It won’t take long.”

  He shook his head, stubborn as an ass.

  I looked him in the eye. “You aren’t retired yet.”

  The look he shot at me was as serious as a heart attack. “Drop it.”

  “But—”

  The look he gave me said he was about two seconds away from reporting me for insubordination.

  I shook my head and crossed my arms. Leaving the wheelhouse, I went to the back of the boat to watch the criminals we’d just passed finish their transaction. My chest felt tight with frustration. How in the hell was I supposed to learn from this cop when he refused to investigate crimes?

  That night my best friend, Pen, knocked on my door about nine o’clock. I opened the door to find her holding a six-pack of beer. Pen wore jeans and a pale pink shirt that made her brown skin glow. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. “Beer faery!”

  I laughed. “Thank God. But we’ll have to be quiet because Danny’s sleeping.”

  She tiptoed across the threshold. “I was going to call, but I was already in the neighborhood so I took a chance.”

  I frowned. “Why were you in the neighborhood?” Pen lived in a nicer part of Babylon that didn’t have a freakhead on every corner.

  “T-Bone needed some help.”

  “Ah,” I said. “He okay?” T-Bone was the new Arcane Anonymous member Pen sponsored. He had been struggling with his new sobriety, but he had been lucky to get an accredited psychologist like Pen as his sponsor.

  She nodded. “Just a minor freakout,” she said dismissively. She’d been down the same road as T-Bone herself.

  I cracked open a beer and handed it to her. “Sounds like we both need one of these.” After she took it, I opened my own beer and took a healthy swig.

  “Uh-oh? Trouble on the high seas?”

  I leaned against the kitchen counter. “I don’t know. This guy I’m assigned to is frustrating.”

  “How so?” She was standing on the other side of the counter and leaned her elbows on the surface.

  “He’s retiring soon, so he’s avoiding doing any real police work. It’s almost like he’s afraid.”

  “Makes sense. If he’s that close to freedom, he probably wants to avoid anything dangerous.” Pen had made no bones about how much she worried about my new career path. Don’t get me wrong, she supported my decision to become a cop, but I guess it made sense for her to worry that I might get hurt.

  I shook my head. “Today we saw a potion deal going down on the river. I wanted to go intervene, but he refused.”

  “You’re sure it was a deal?”

  I nodded. “I think so. It had all the hallmarks of one. Regardless, it was shady enough looking that any cop worth his salt would have gone to question the parties involved.”

  “I take it you argued with his decision?” A knowing smile tilted her lips.

  “Of course! I didn’t join the BPD to cruise along the stinky river all day. I want to arrest people.”

  “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to do that once you’re sworn in. Why not enjoy the easy gig until that happens?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I’m just ready to get started, you know?”

  She reached across the counter and patted my hand. “You’ve worked so hard to get here, I’m sure it’s frustrating to be on the verge of everything coming together.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Besides, you only have what? Two more days until this last detail is over? Then you’ll be sworn in next week and can go kick all the ass you want.”

  I chuckled and took another sip. The best thing about having a psychologist for a best friend was always having access to the voice of reason.

  Pen looked around the ap
artment and paused. “What’s with all the boxes?”

  “Did I not tell you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I got the house!”

  Her eyes widened and a huge smile spread across her face. “Shut up!”

  “We move next weekend.” I’d been spending my evenings packing away our meager possessions. I still had a lot of work to do, but I’d already booked a rental trailer for the big move on Saturday. “Are you free this weekend?”

  Her face morphed into a fake expression of reluctance. “I don’t know, I’ve got a pretty busy social schedule.” Dropping the act, she grinned. “Of course I’ll help out.”

  “Cool!”

  “Once you’re settled, we can sit down and start on the application for Meadowlake, too. Since it’s summer, the deadline has already passed to apply, but I can probably grease a few wheels to get him a space for the fall.”

  “That would be great, Pen. It would majorly suck if we moved and he couldn’t get in.”

  She nodded. “I hear you. I’ve already talked to my friend in the admissions office. She said there should be no problem.”

  I looked down at the beer can in my hand. “Did you, uh, talk to the financial aid office, too?”

  “I did.”

  I looked up. “And?” This entire plan hinged on the ability to get a discount on tuition; otherwise there was no way I could afford to send Danny there.

  “They said there’d be no problem transferring the discount to Danny since I’m his aunt.”

  I snorted. “You told them he’s your nephew?”

  “African Americans can have white relatives.” She laughed. “Besides, he’s totally family.” She smirked. “Just not by blood.”

  “Kate?” Danny called from the doorway of the bedroom.

  “What’s wrong, buddy?”

  He yawned and wiped sleep from his eyes. When he opened them again he finally noticed Pen standing there. Without another word, he threw himself at her for a hug. She laughed and wrapped her arms around him. “It’s good to see you, too, dude.”