Volatile Bonds

by Jaye Wells

  She shot me an odd look. “Yes, I know.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that I’m ready to commit myself to him.”

  She shook her head but swallowed whatever she’d been about to say with a mouthful of beer.

  “What?” I didn’t really want to hear it, but I was enough of a masochist to be curious.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just funny that you’re willing to die for the guy, but you’re not willing to call yourself his girlfriend.”

  “It’s not the same, Pen. You wouldn’t understand.”

  I’d finished my second beer. I wanted a third. I really, really wanted a third, but I also needed to keep my wits about me. Pen had entered the phase of the night where she tried to fix me, and if I gave her enough of an opening, she’d make me face some things I didn’t want to deal with yet.

  She pointed her bottle at me. “I understand more than you think, but I also know that there’s no talking to you about this stuff. When you’re ready, you’ll either get over yourself and accept that you care more for that boy than you want to admit, or you’ll create a total shit show.”

  “Hey! That’s not fair. I haven’t created a shit show in months.”

  She nodded her head toward the house. “You got one brewing in there, right?”

  “That one’s not my fault. Danny applied to a new school without telling me. Volos told him about it, and Baba and Mez helped him apply.”

  Pen, who’d been the counselor at Danny’s old school, perked up. “Which school?”

  “Some new magnet for Adept kids.”

  “The Conservatory?” she said. “That place would be sort of awesome for him, Kate.”

  “You’re missing the point. They all lied to me, and now I only have a couple of days to learn everything about this place before his acceptance letter needs a response.”

  “He got in?” She practically squealed it.

  I paused. “Yeah, why?”

  “That place is really hard to qualify for. From what I’ve heard, it’s basically for the best of the best Adept kids.”

  “Apparently Mez spoke to the principal on Danny’s behalf.” I clenched my jaw as a new wave of anger washed through me.

  “I know you’re pissed about them lying, but this is a huge opportunity for him.”

  “Sure, if I want him to become a wiz for some huge clean magic company.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want that for him?”

  I stilled, thinking it over. The wizards who created potions for the legal clean magic market could make a very good living. If Danny landed a job at a place like Sortilege Inc., creating new laundry potions and age-defying magic for cosmetics for the average American household, he’d be set.

  But that kind of security came at a cost.

  “What if he decides he wants to do something else with his life? This is basically forcing him into that track. If he stayed in the Mundane high school, he’d be able to go into any field he wanted. But this Conservatory seems like it would lead him straight to the labs.”

  “That’s what he wants, Kate.”

  “That’s what he wants now.” I held her gaze to let her know my concerns wouldn’t be dismissed so easily. “I know everyone thinks I’m too strict about magic, but I’ve already compromised a lot, and look where it’s gotten us.” I waved toward the house to indicate tonight’s current predicament. “I let him become Mez’s apprentice, and now I find out they’re sneaking behind my back. How am I not supposed to wonder if I made the wrong decision now? How can I trust that letting him go down this path won’t lead him to the darker sides of magic?”

  She leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. “No parent knows that about their kids. He’s sixteen, not six. You have to let him make some decisions for himself. And then you have to let him learn how to pick himself up if he makes a mistake. But this controlling approach you have is just asking for him to rebel against you.”

  I leaned my head back to look up at the sky. Babylon’s light pollution made it impossible to see more than a couple of weak stars. If I were a superstitious woman, I might have wished on one of those stars for some guidance. But I didn’t see any stars, and besides, the only person I wanted guidance from was dead.

  “I’m missing my mom tonight.” The thought came from out of nowhere. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d admit to just anyone, but Pen was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister.

  “I know it’s hard, honey. You want the best for him, but if you think about it, she didn’t have much more mothering experience than you do. And, all due respect to the dead, but you’ve provided a lot more stability for Danny than she gave you.”

  I dragged my gaze from the sky. “Huh, I guess you’re right.”

  I’d been seventeen when she died, and Danny was now already sixteen. The difference was she’d been raising a teen daughter who was following in the family business, which happened to be cooking and distributing illegal and addictive dirty magic potions. Danny, who I’d raised on my own since he was six, was a solid B student who rarely got in trouble. Mom had been a prostitute for a sex magic coven. I was a detective who busted people like my mom for a living.

  “Be that as it may,” I said, “sometimes I wish it were her dealing with these conundrums instead of me.”

  “This is going to sound terrible, but do you really think you and Danny would have been better off if she’d lived?”

  After so many years thinking of my mother as some sort of saint or martyr, it was disorienting to think of her as the total opposite. It was only about six weeks earlier that I’d found out that it hadn’t been a potion I’d cooked that caused her death. I’d carried unnecessary guilt around for a decade until John Volos finally admitted that my Uncle Abe had been the one to order the kill of his own sister. Obviously, finding that out hadn’t done much to endear me to Volos, but getting that weight off my conscience had let new ideas in—like the fact that I was managing to be a better mother than she’d been, which made me feel both proud and terribly guilty at the same time.

  “You want to talk about what you’re feeling right now?” Pen said softly.

  I blinked away the sting in my eyes and opened the third beer.

  “Damn it,” I said after I’d downed enough to wash away the sting in the back of my throat. “Tonight was supposed to be about cheering you up.”

  “No, it was about us being together,” she corrected. “I’ve missed hanging out like this. It’s done me more good than you can imagine.”

  “That’s good. Me, too.” I smiled. A new idea sprang up in my mind. “Hey! Have you thought about applying at the Conservatory? I bet they need counselors.”

  Her smile was pained. “Yeah. I checked. They only want Adept faculty and staff.”

  “Shit,” I said. “That sucks.”

  She nodded. “Trust me, I’ve gone to every school in a fifty-mile radius. They’re all either not hiring or they’re friendly with the stiffs at Meadowlake and won’t touch me.”

  “I’m sorry, Pen. What about going into private practice?”

  “I don’t have the capital to start my own, and most of the existing ones require clinical experience I don’t have.” She picked at the edge of the bottle’s label. “I’ve been thinking maybe about trying something else. A nonprofit or something.”

  “That would be cool!” I enthused, trying to encourage.

  “We’ll see. In the meantime, Rufus called and said he needs some help organizing some Arcane Anonymous events. It’s a volunteer gig, but it’ll get me out of the house.”

  Rufus was the leader of the AA group Pen and I had belonged to for years. I quit AA the previous year because my work in the MEA required me to use magic, but Pen still went to meetings religiously. She’d been the one with the actual addiction to potions in college. I’d only gone to meetings to remind myself of the cost of making those potions on human lives.

  “That’s a fantastic idea,” I said.

  “Still, I need something to turn up
soon. I’m almost out of my savings.”

  Because she’d quit her job at Meadowlake, she hadn’t been eligible for unemployment benefits. “Listen, if you need help—”

  “Nope.”

  “Pen, don’t—”

  “I said no,” she said in her best and-that’s-final voice. “If something doesn’t turn up soon, I’ll get a part-time gig or something, but I’m not about to take a handout.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s not handout if it’s from family.”

  “In my family, it was and they’d never let you forget it.”

  “Fuck them,” I said. “They’re not here now. I am. And what’s mine is yours, no strings. Got it?”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I figured it was Morales checking in, so I didn’t pick it up.

  “Anyway,” I said, but the phone rang. I glanced at the screen and realized it was Gardner. “Shit, hold on.” Into the phone, I said, “Prospero.”

  “You need to get to the morgue.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Franklin’s got a couple of bodies. Something about maybe they’re tied to the Valentine case.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Morales with you?”

  “No.”

  “Huh,” she said. “I assume you know where to find him?”

  My situation with Morales wasn’t a secret, but Gardner had never actually spoken to us about it. At that moment, I wasn’t real excited about discussing with my boss that he planned to come over for a booty call soon. “I can probably rustle him up.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll expect an update first thing in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When I hung up, Pen was already gathering her things.

  “Sorry, that was—”

  “Work, I know,” she said. “Why don’t you head out. I’ll clean this up.”

  “No, I can do it. You go on.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to go home yet. I’ll probably just hang out with Baba and watch TV or something.”

  I hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course!” Her smile was forced, but I didn’t have time to do anything about it. I had to get in touch with Morales and arrange to either pick him up or meet him at the morgue.

  I pulled her in for a quick, hard hug. “I love you. Everything’s going to work out.”

  She sighed and relaxed into me a little. “Love you, too.” She pulled back, her smile more genuine now. “Now git on with you. I got some episodes of the Blue Devils to catch up on with Baba.”

  Chapter Four

  We arrived at the morgue an hour later. I’d picked Morales up from the sports bar in my Jeep, Sybil, since he’d gotten a ride there from his buddy and it was on my way.

  “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Franklin called.

  “You got any coffee?” I asked. It was almost one a.m. and any night that ended at the morgue was bound to be a long one.

  He pointed to a yellowed carafe in a machine that looked like it had been chugging out coffee since the Eisenhower administration. “Tastes like shit, but it’s strong. You’re gonna need it for what I have to show you.” He jerked a thumb toward the exam room behind him.

  I grabbed a two paper cups from the counter and filled them with coffee that was roughly the color and consistency of hot tar. I held one up and looked over my shoulder at Morales. He nodded and came forward to take it.

  I took an experimental sip of mine and winced. “What’d you brew it with—jet fuel?”

  Franklin snorted. “That’s right.”

  “All right, Franky,” I said. “What you got for us?”

  “Deceased’s name was Sergei Kostorov.”

  Morales shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell. What coven’s he in?”

  Franklin smiled. “Ain’t in no coven, Special Agent.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  Franklin shot him a withering look. “He isn’t in a coven, but I’d bet good money he’s visited one recently.” He waved a hand. “Follow me, kids, but don’t touch anything.”

  Morales and I shared look before following the M.E. into the exam room.

  Inside, there were four tables spread out at even intervals. Two of the tables were empty. The last table on the left held a closed body bag. The table just to the right of the door held the other body, which was covered with a white sheet. About halfway down the length of the table, something tented the cloth. I prayed it was an instrument Franklin had left impaled in the body, but I had a bad feeling that was one prayer that would never be answered.

  “Mr. Kostorov was brought in this afternoon after I got your boy back from the lab explosion,” Franklin began. “Aged seventy-two, married. No history of pre-existing disease, non-smoker. He died at Babylon General. Heart attack.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, “what does this have to do with the Valentine case?”

  “Who told you it did?” he said.

  “Gardner,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I might have given her that impression, but we’ll get to that in a second. But first, check this out.”

  He ripped the cloth off the body. Just as I feared, the protrusion had not been an instrument, but an erect penis.

  It was as hard as Babe Ruth’s bat.

  “Holy shit,” Morales said.

  “Gives new meaning to stiff, right?” Franklin joked.

  I couldn’t stop staring at it. “How is it still…” I held my index finger straight up.

  “That, my friends, is why you’re here. After he died, the attending physician called for an autopsy.”

  “Why?” Morales said. “Heart attack isn’t exactly surprising for a guy that age.”

  “Right, except that the widow Kostorov admitted that night before last was their anniversary. Seems the mister decided to surprise her with a little party favor to celebrate.”

  I dragged my gaze from the dead man’s penis. “Huh?”

  “He bought a virility potion.”

  “Let me guess—his old ticker couldn’t handle all the excitement,” I said.

  “Wrong,” Franklin said. “His ticker couldn’t handle the eighteen-hour erection.”

  Morales’s mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me.”

  “According to the intake nurse, Mrs. Kostorov didn’t bring him in until twelve hours in. Said she tried everything she could think of to get it to go down.”

  A hysterical giggle gathered in the base of my throat. “That’s terrible,” I choked out.

  “Once they got him checked into the hospital, the doc tried everything to undo the potion’s effect. Apparently, this sort of thing is more common than you think with virility potions.” He turned to Morales. “Remember that, Slick.”

  Morales flipped him the bird. I covered my smirk with a cough.

  “Anyway, the issue didn’t resolve using the normal anti-magic interventions. After a few hours at the hospital, Kostorov’s heart just gave out. Attending sent him to me to find out what was in that potion.”

  “What did your exam reveal?”

  “Now, this is where things get interesting.” Franklin pulled out his clipboard and flipped through a couple of pages. “Like I said, there weren’t any traces of pre-existing issues. I tested the blood here for some of the common ingredients in virility potions—dragon’s blood or vervain. Neither were present.”

  “Translation?” Morales asked.

  “First, the two main ingredients in the majority of virility potions used in Babylon weren’t there. Second, for me to find out which chemicals were in the potion, I need to send it to the regional lab.”

  “And?” Morales said.

  “And,” I answered for Franklin as realization dawned, “it’ll be weeks if not months to see results.”

  Franklin winked at me. “Always knew you were smart, Detective.”

  “So you asked us here because you want to use MEA resources to test the bloo
d.” Morales sounded incredulous. “Mr. Kostorov ain’t got nothing on your balls, Franklin.”

  “Shit,” he said, dragging the word out to contain five syllables, “what you take me for? You really think I’d bring you out here just for my own selfish purposes?”

  Morales raised his hands. “We’re waiting.”

  Franklin waggled his fingers in invitation for us to follow him to the other occupied table. “This one came in two hours ago. Darrell Hill, aged twenty-seven.”

  Franklin unzipped the bulky body bag. When he reached the waist, an erection sprang out of the bag. “I had the doctor test the blood before he came down. No dragon’s blood or vervain.”

  “So what?” Morales said. “You think there’s a serial killer out there who lures men in to take virility potions that makes their hearts quit?”

  I shot Morales a warning look.

  “No, hotshot,” Franklin snapped, “I think there’s a sex magic practitioner that’s selling an extremely dangerous virility potion. Before you got here, I called around to a couple other hospitals. Memorial had a case four nights ago with same cause of death, except it was a sixteen-year-old.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  “No shit.” Franklin used a gloved hand to tuck Mr. Hill’s dick back into the bag.

  Morales had paled when Franklin revealed that there was a third death. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “Mez, it’s Morales. I need you down at the morgue. Dr. Franklin’s going to give you some blood samples—”

  Franklin interrupted. “Semen, too.”

  Morales shot him a long-suffering look. “And some semen. We need you to do a test to find out what alchemical components were used in a potion taken by three different men.” He pulled the phone from his ear, and the tinny sound of Mez’s shouts filled the room. “Trust me, I am well aware what time it is.” He clicked off. “He’ll be by within the hour for the samples.”

  “I’ll have it all ready to go by then,” Franklin said. “Thanks for this.”