Cursed Moon

by Jaye Wells

  “What the hell?” I whispered.

  “Seems your uncle’s attorney called Owens this morning claiming Abe had important information regarding the Aphrodite Johnson case.” She paused to let that sink in like poison. “Naturally, Owens hadn’t been briefed on the case, which was the first thing he chewed my ass out about when he called me an hour ago.”

  “Why the hell would he call Owens?” Morales asked.

  “The attorney said Abe didn’t trust Eldritch to act on this lead so he went right to the top.” She paused, but something in my gut told me the other shoe had yet to drop. I didn’t have to wait long for that feeling to get confirmed. “Which is also why he’ll only speak directly to you.”

  Morales muttered a curse. Gardner was silent, but she watched me closely, like she didn’t want to miss one flicker of my reaction to this news. I focused on trying to control my physical signs of distress. Just last night Volos had predicted Abe wouldn’t stop at one ignored phone call. I had assumed then he was right, but I had no idea Abe would resort to such extreme measures to force me into this corner.

  “Why would Abraxas Prospero want to help the MEA?” Morales asked. I got the impression my partner was trying to buy me some time, and I appreciated the hell out of it.

  “Only one way to find out,” Gardner said. “I already called Abe’s lawyer to arrange the meeting. You’re booked on the first ferry to Crowley in the morning.”

  My mouth fell open. “Sir, you can’t seriously expect me to go there.” Cold sweat bloomed on my chest at the thought of sitting across a table from my uncle. The closest I’d come to seeing him in the last decade was watching his trial on TV, and even then I’d squirmed in my seat as if he somehow could see me through the screen.

  She frowned. “Why the hell not?”

  “You have to know this is a setup. Abe doesn’t do anything to help anyone but himself. He’s got an angle and I guarantee it’s got nothing to do with helping us.”

  “We can’t ignore this. If he really does have information and something goes down, the mayor will have us on the first bus back to Detroit.” By “us,” she meant the rest of the MEA team, who were based out of a regional office in Michigan. I, however, would be stuck in Babylon with Eldritch and the mayor making my life a living hell.

  “Shit,” I said. “This is bullshit.”

  Gardner’s face softened, and she leaned forward. The compassion in her expression looked out of place, like she was trying on a tight pair of shoes she rarely wore. “I know it’s not going to be easy, but at least you’ll have the upper hand. He’ll be in shackles and you’re a detective now on an MEA task force.”

  “That’s the problem, sir,” I said. “As long as we need him for information, he’ll always have the upper hand.”

  Her face hardened again. “Sorry you’re uncomfortable, but you will go to Crowley tomorrow and you will interview him.”

  My stomach dropped. Pen’s angry words from the night before echoed in my head. How much of yourself are you going to surrender for this job?

  I’d dismissed the question as ridiculous when she’d asked it. But that was before my boss decided my mental well-being was less important than not pissing off the mayor. I could face down junkies and stand up for myself against just about anyone—except my uncle. He’d been a surrogate father to me growing up, then he’d been my mentor, and finally he’d become my enemy. Going there wasn’t just dangerous to my equilibrium but a threat to everything I’d built. Chances were good Uncle Abe knew I’d found out he was behind Gray Wolf. If he brought it up in front of Morales, I was toast.

  I raised my chin. “And if I refuse?”

  Gardner’s expression hardened. “Then you won’t even have your old patrol job to go back to.”

  It wasn’t just a line in the sand. It was a crater opening at my feet. If I refused to fall in line, I’d lose it all.

  “I’d advise you to think before you speak, Prospero,” Gardner continued. “I know this won’t be easy for you, but are you really willing to throw your career away because you’re afraid to spend five minutes in a room with your uncle?”

  It was the word afraid that hit me like a sucker punch. If I walked away from this, I’d be admitting that I was scared of Abe. All the work I’d done, all the sacrifice and the struggle, would have been for nothing. And worse, Abraxas Prospero would get the last laugh.

  Because no doubt about it: This was a test. He knew I’d be nervous about seeing him. He wanted to find out if I had the balls to stand across from him and ask for help with the case, or if I’d run away like a spooked child.

  Pen’s concerns aside, I refused to throw away my career for Uncle Abe. “Fine,” I snapped, finally. “I’ll go.” I stepped forward and made sure Gardner was looking into my eyes when I continued. “But you’re fooling yourself if you believe that Abraxas Prospero would ever help the cops. He’s setting us up.”

  “And you’re fooling yourself if you believe I am naive enough not to know that.” She threw down the pen she’d been holding and rose from her desk. “When you’re done, you will file a detailed report to both me and Captain Eldritch.”

  And with that, we were dismissed. As I turned to leave, my movements felt mechanical and a cold numbness descended over the part of my brain that allowed me to regret decisions.

  “Don’t look so glum.” Morales nudged me with his elbow. “I’ll be there with you.”

  I tried to force a smile, but knowing my partner would witness the shit show at Crowley accounted for a large portion of my dread.

  I wanted to go hide in a bar and drink until alcohol poisoning gave me an excuse to delay the meeting the next day. But cases don’t care about your feelings. They don’t wait for you to find your nerve. They move forward, leaving you no choice but to keep up or get out of the game altogether. I had to just put one foot in front of the other and hope that Mez had some good news to share to brighten up this shitty day.

  “What’s up?” Morales asked when we entered the lab.

  Mez’s dreadlocks were pulled back into a ponytail and topped with a pair of goggles. Pair that with his lab coat, embroidered vest, and dark gray trousers, and he looked like an Asian mad scientist, which, the more I thought about it, he kind of was.

  “I got the initial chem reports ready for the potions we found at the temple.”

  Relieved to have a distraction from worrying about the impending meeting with Abe, I leaned back against one of the counters that didn’t contain any bubbling beakers or Bunsen burners. “And?”

  “As expected, it’s definitely a sex magic potion. The bad news is it’s not your typical libido enhancement elixir.” He waved us over to look at the printouts in the folder. I scanned the list of active ingredients.

  “Holy shit, why would they combine yohimbe and dulse?”

  “Explain,” Morales said, squinting at the list like it was written in hieroglyphs.

  “They’re often mixed into beverages to incite lust. Alone, each is powerful. But combined?” Mez shook his head. “It’s like pouring gas on a fire.”

  Morales grinned. “Okay, so this potion gets people really horny. So?”

  I shot him an annoyed look. “Morales, this potion won’t just make people horny. It will make them incredibly sexually aggressive.”

  He glanced at Mez for confirmation. “Super rapey.” The wiz nodded. “Plus, yohimbe is toxic in high doses, which means this potion could also be deadly if it’s not administered with care.”

  “Shit,” Morales said. “Anyone want to guess why Aphrodite might be developing a rape potion?”

  I sighed. “As far as we’re concerned, the issue isn’t why she would make one, but what our perp intends to do with it.”

  Mez shook his head. “Nothing good.”

  “This would worry me on a normal month, but with the Blue Moon coming…” I trailed off as my mind provided a lovely horror movie of what a rape potion would do to a population of Adepts high on lunar madness.

/>   “I think we need to go talk to Little Man,” Morales said. “Assuming we can find him.”

  I nodded. “Mez, can you do me a favor and research if there are any known sex magic rites that require a potion like this?”

  “Sure. You thinking another sex magic coven might have stolen it?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll be shocked if some upstart is making a run for Aphrodite’s territory, but at this point anything is possible.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find.”

  The cell phone buzzed at my hip. The number on the ID was Babylon General Hospital. Frowning, I answered, “Prospero.”

  “Is this Kate?”

  I frowned. Almost no one involved in my job called me Kate. “Yeah.”

  “This is Nurse Smith, from Babylon General—”

  “Oh, hi!” She was the nurse who took care of Danny when he’d been in a coma. “How are you?”

  “Wishing I was calling with better news, actually.”

  My stomach dipped. “What happened?” My brain flashed up a montage of Danny in all sorts of horrifying accidents.

  “Your friend was brought in a little while ago.” There was some shuffling of papers. “Penelope Griffin?”

  My heart was suddenly busy trying to bust its way through my rib cage. Beside me, Morales reached out a hand and touched my arm, as if to silently ask if I was okay. I shook my head. “Is she okay?”

  “Traffic accident. She’s stable but she’s pretty banged up. Once we got her triaged, she asked that we call you.”

  My pulse slowed a fraction. “If she could ask for me, then she couldn’t be too bad off, right?”

  “She’s been in and out of consciousness due to a concussion. We’re keeping her overnight to monitor her status.”

  “It happened this morning?”

  “Actually, the police who responded said the accident must have happened last night.”

  A frigid chill crept across my skin. “What?”

  “From what he could tell on the scene, the other car hit her and then both vehicles rolled into the old McLeod Quarry. A commuter spotted the wreckage this morning on the way to work.”

  I closed my eyes. “Jesus.” The abandoned quarry site was about a mile from Pen’s apartment. She’d almost made it home last night, but instead she’d spent the night hurt and alone in a fucking ditch. “I’m on my way.”

  It took three tries to disconnect the call. By the time I managed it, I was shaking so badly Morales had to take the phone from me and set it down.

  Mez stood on the other side of me, so the two of them created a sort of human shield. “What happened,” he urged.

  I told them what I knew, my voice an autopilot monotone.

  When I finished, Mez nodded, like he was choosing his words carefully. “The nurse said she’s stable, right?”

  I nodded jerkily.

  “So why do you look like you just got the worst phone call of your life?”

  I swallowed hard. “Because she said Pen got into the accident late last night. On the way home from my house.”

  Morales frowned. “Had she been drinking?”

  I waved a hand. “No—I mean she’d had maybe two beers.” I huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I need to get going. Do you think you can continue to look for Little Man and Mary without me for a couple of hours?”

  He shook his head. “I’m going with you.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t but me, Prospero. I’m taking you. Once we’re sure she’s really okay we can continue our search for the twins.”

  I blinked. “Thanks.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised? Pen’s your friend. That means she’s family.”

  “You guys go on,” Mez said. “I’ll let Gardner know the situation.”

  “Thanks, Mez.”

  With that, Morales turned me by my shoulders and urged me toward the door. “Don’t worry, Kate. She’s going to be all right.”

  I nodded, but I wondered if I would be. Because my first thought after Smith told me Pen was stable was that if I’d told the truth about cooking with Volos, that party never would have happened and Pen wouldn’t be in the hospital. Karma was a fucking bitch.

  Chapter Ten

  My heart raced my sneakers down the white corridor. Nurse Smith had assured me that Pen would be okay, but on the drive over my adrenaline had spiked to dangerous levels.

  In my head, I was remembering the day six weeks ago when Danny’s body had been wheeled in after Gray Wolf turned him into a monster and we’d had to shoot him with a salt flare to stop him from killing me.

  “Kate!” Nurse Smith called. As I moved toward her, I tried to find some solace in the fact that she was assigned to Pen. Back when she’d treated Danny, I appreciated that the nurse didn’t candy-coat and she never lost her nerve when shit got tense.

  “Special Agent Morales,” the nurse said in greeting to Morales. They’d met when Danny was in his coma.

  “Thanks for calling,” I said. “Is she okay?”

  Smith rubbed her eyes and stretched her back, indicating she was well into a long shift. “She’ll live, but she might not be happy about it for a while. In addition to the concussion, her left wrist is sprained, and she has a couple of broken ribs, contusions all down the left side of her body, and a nasty case of whiplash.”

  “Any idea how the wreck happened?” Morales asked.

  Smith jerked her head toward a uniformed cop loitering by the coffee machines. “That’s the responding.”

  I nodded. “Is she awake?”

  “She’s having her dressings changed.” She gave me the number of a room about four doors down the hall. “By the time you’re done getting the story they should be done and you can check on her.”

  “Thanks, Nurse Smith.”

  She smiled genuinely. “If there’s anything you need…”

  Morales and I approached the uniform a few moments later. “Excuse me?” I held out my hand. “I’m Detective Kate Prospero and this is my colleague Special Agent Drew Morales, MEA. I’m Penelope Griffin’s best friend.”

  The officer swallowed his mouthful of coffee hard and his eyes widened at hearing our titles. The guy couldn’t have been old enough to have outgrown wet dreams. “I’m Officer Murphy. I responded to the wreck?” When I nodded and waited expectantly, he shuffled on his feet. “Can we discuss your friend’s wreck someplace private?”

  I was torn between annoyance and pity. The kid was obviously fresh out of the academy and just trying to do a good job. But his deferential demeanor struck a chord in some jaded part of me that had forgotten the days when I had that same ambitious shine in my eyes. Back when I thought I could make a difference. Back when I still believed there were good guys and bad guys, and it was always clear who deserved to win.

  “Detective?” he said hesitantly after I didn’t respond.

  I snapped myself out of the dark spaces and cleared my throat. “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

  “Totally understandable, ma’am.”

  It was the “ma’am” that spelled his doom. “In there,” I snapped, pointing to a small consultation room off the main waiting area.

  Murphy, Morales, and I entered the empty waiting room. My partner shot me an odd look, like he’d seen something on my face that concerned him. I shot him a dismissive frown.

  The door wasn’t even closed when the kid started in. “Does Miss Griffin use illegal Arcane substances?”

  I paused in the process of shutting the door behind us and then slowly snapped it shut. Talk about choosing the absolute worst question to lead with. I turned to face him, my back against the closed door. “Are you sure that’s what you meant to ask me?”

  He frowned. “Yes?”

  I pushed away from the door. “Really? Did you have any evidence from the scene that might implicate her in potion use? Further, was there evidence that the wreck was her fault?”

  “Err—no. I’m just trying to cover my bases.”

  I narrowed my
eyes. “By putting the interview subject on the defensive before the conversation even starts? Bad form, Officer.”

  “Kate,” Morales said under his breath. I ignored him and continued to stare down the rookie.

  His mouth worked for a second. I let him flounder on the end of the line for a few seconds before I continued. “If you want someone to be open and honest with you, you need to first establish rapport. Most of the people you will talk to in this line of work are emotionally distraught and/or hiding something. If you come at them head-on you’re going to hit one brick wall after another.”

  His expression became wary. “Okay?”

  “May I see the initial accident report,” Morales asked. The guy shrugged and handed it over.

  I made a disgusted sound. “How long have you been on the force?”

  He pulled himself up straighter. “Six months, ma’am.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Ma’am is something you call your Sunday school teacher or your mother, not a goddamned detective, son. When you’re talking to a superior female officer, you call her sir or by her rank. Got it?”

  He nodded slowly and backed up a step, like he was worried I was mentally unstable. I suppose I was in a way. Unhinged. Yeah, I felt about two screws away from becoming totally fucking unhinged. “Now, as to your question: It’s pointless to ask me if Pen’s had a history of Arcane because even if she did and you tried to pin a DUI on her, the evidence wouldn’t hold up in court because her lawyer would have it dismissed as hearsay.”

  “According to this,” Morales said, holding up the paper, “Pen’s car was T-boned by the other vehicle, which means she is not at fault for the accident.”

  My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Seriously?” I grabbed the report from Morales. “In addition, the car that hit her was a potion-fueled vehicle that was in hover mode. With the two full moons this month, owners of those cars have been cautioned to drive in Mundane fuel mode so as to avoid collisions caused by the unstable lunar energy.”

  The kid nodded. “I—”

  “Why don’t you cut the shit and tell me where the other driver is?”

  He blinked once, twice. Cleared his throat. “Um, the other party didn’t survive the accident. That is documented if you’d kept reading, sir.”