I nodded. He rattled off three names: Thomas Johns, Ferdinand Hall, and Samantha Williams.
“Any of them stick out?”
“Johns and Williams have sheets, mostly petty crimes,” Kai said. “Hall didn’t have a record. Public search indicated he works down at the graveyard.”
“Not exactly a crew who could take down a guardian,” I said.
“There was a fourth print match, too,” Kai said. “File came up classified. Not even a name.”
“Deadwood,” I said, and Kai nodded in agreement. “His file a bunch of black lines, too?”
“Not even. No access at all.”
Xavier Deadwood, man of mystery.
“Speaking of redactions.” Kai reached into his pocket and dangled his keys on his finger. “I asked Hendricks about Tamara Marquez, too. Her file was mostly blacked out, but there was a last known address.”
I glanced at his jingling keys. “Are you asking me on a date, Agent Taylor?”
He didn’t skip a beat. “As long as you drink a couple glasses of water first.”
Well played, Agent Taylor, well played.
I downed the water in a hurry, water streaming off my chin. Then I headed to the door and threw the locks open. “This could affect my evaluation, you know.”
“You’ll pass with flying colors.”
I could’ve sworn I saw Kai wink as we stepped into the moonlight.
But maybe that was just my slightly buzzed imagination.
17
“Love what Tamara’s done with the place.” I leaned out the tinted window, taking in the aroma of motor oil and dirt emanating from the bulldozed field. A fancy sign hanging off the long chain link fence showed what the coming development would look like. “Very industrial chic.”
“It’s the address on file.” Kai showed me his phone’s screen, which had a picture of her license. Gorgeous, with a sultry Spanish complexion and full lips to match. If Cross had fallen hard for her, it was easy to see why. Her eyes reached the depths of my soul, even from a photograph.
It stated she was a person of high interest, and that she had arrived on the island a little over three months ago. Interestingly enough, that was right around the time Dante Cross had showed up, too.
Maybe she’d come here seeking vengeance.
The rest of the file Hendricks had sent over was redacted, indicating top secret clearance was required.
That only made me more intrigued about this mysterious woman and her soul-reading abilities.
“Guess we won’t be getting our palms read tonight.” I ducked back inside the SUV.
“Deadwood couldn’t have pulled this kill off alone.” Kai gripped the steering wheel tightly, which was his only display of frustration. “Everything we know suggests he’s an assassin type. Werewolf. That means he’d have to outsource the high-level magic.”
“So let’s run down the list,” I said. My buzz had worn off, replaced by an adrenaline high.
“It’s late,” Kai said, checking the clock. “You need to get back. For tomorrow.”
Apparently he’d reconsidered his bravado, and was now erring on the side of prudence.
I rolled my eyes. Since when did playing things safe solve cases?”
“I can help with the syringe.” I dialed Renard, who had hopefully been working his network for intel.
The kid answered with a hurried, “Yeah?”
“Get anything?”
“Damn Eden, it’s only been a couple hours—”
A teenage girl cut him off in the background. She sounded annoyed that they’d gotten interrupted. I stifled a laugh.
“All right, I get it,” I said. “This is important, though, I swear.”
Renard sighed. “I found one thing. About killing a guardian.”
“The cause of death?”
“You said she drowned,” Renard said. “But I looked through my books, and there was no precedent for suicide.”
“Meaning?”
“I looked for deicide arcana spells that would cause a welt like that, and also might encourage her to . . . you know.”
“Jump?”
“I didn’t find anything that triggered suicidal urges.” Renard told the girl to give him a second, and she whined at him. “But the Turncoat Curse could’ve made the guardian take matters into her own hands.”
“Sounds ominous,” I said. “What’s it do?”
“It makes a magically bound guardian turn on whomever they’re trying to protect.”
Now that was interesting. Perhaps the phoenix had been the actual target. Having someone with a sliver of the God of War’s soul pulsing within them was a good way to kill a mythical creature.
“Sneaky.” I drummed my fingers on the car’s dashboard. “Hard to make?”
“Textbook alone cost me a thousand bucks. It’d take years to learn how to make even a semi-stable version of this curse.”
Rare and exotic. That narrowed the list of possible creators. “Anything else?”
“That’s the thing, Eden,” Renard said, tapping at his computer keyboard on the other end of the call, “it’s a volatile mixture that can be brewed only by a master apothecarial sorceress. Custom syringe, even, to withstand and contain the blend of corrosive ingredients.”
“But you’re saying this Turncoat Curse isn’t lethal.”
“Not fatal,” Renard said. “Just incurable. An infected person tries to kill everyone meaningful to them. Friends, family. Loved ones.”
That didn’t sound good. Anya must’ve taken matters into her own hands to prevent that from happening. “Send over a snap of the book.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Just a standard investigation,” I said. “Working with the FBI, now.”
The kid wasn’t buying it. Smart guy. “You got me looking into crazy curses, this Phoenix Protocol—”
“Find anything about that yet?” I asked, somewhat hopeful.
“Nah.” There was a long pause. “This all sounds real serious, Eden.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” No need to spread panic if it could be avoided. My phone buzzed as the pic came through. “Keep studying.”
The call ended, and I turned to Kai. “The kid says Anya was inflicted with the Turncoat Curse.”
“Kid?” The agent skeptical about the source.
“High schooler. Senior.” I showed Kai the photograph of the obscure arcana book. “Makes someone turn against everything they love. I’d say whatever a guardian has sworn to protect fits that bill.”
Kai said, “So you think the phoenix was the real target?”
“Could be.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “Any of those syringe fingerprints belong to an apothecarial sorceress?”
“You really need to get some rest.” Kai pulled away from the empty dirt field and did a U-turn.
“The entire territory will burn, should the situation grow unmanageable.” I uttered the words with a movie announcer’s gravel-toned seriousness.
Kai didn’t smile. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“Well, someone’s got to live nearby.” I stared at the beleaguered cityscape out the tinted window. Not the finest real estate the island had to offer. “Shame to waste a perfectly good evening.”
“It’s too far.” Kai took half a breath and rolled through a stop sign. He began making the turn back to the villa—and away from the case—when I placed my hand on top his, like a dog protesting against its owner.
“Spit it out,” I said. “You’re a bad liar.”
“I have a feeling you say that to everyone,” Kai said, the sigil on his arm glowing softly as he called my bluff. My pulse rose a little, since the spear only lit up when a threat was present. But all I saw were wispy tropical plants and abandoned empties rattling in the dim light.
The blue glow died when my hand slid off.
He allowed the wheel to slip back straight, carrying us forward instead of toward the shore.
“Only liars,�
�� I said. Truth was, he was a good liar. He had something caged up inside him, buried so deep that he barely even let himself see it. I’d caught a glimpse back in Alkemy, when he’d almost killed Moreland in the nightclub.
Kai tapped his phone and said, “Thomas Johns lives three blocks from here.”
“Is he a sorcerer?”
“Small-time thief with a rap-sheet the length of my arm.”
I’d take it.
18
Our three-block journey carried us into the worst part of the city. A mile and a half away, Aldric’s headquarters shone, its top third glowing like a lantern. But light and dark could be deceiving. That building might have looked more respectable than the crumbling row homes streaming by our windows, but it was a hundred times more dangerous.
The SUV seesawed through a gauntlet of cavernous potholes, causing the vehicle’s chassis to shudder. By the end of the ride, my tailbone ached. Kai parked at the end of the street, beneath a street lamp barely clinging to life.
Although both sides of the street were lined with homes, ours was one of the few cars intrepid enough to actually park here. I wondered if that was a product of the substandard paving, or if all the other cars had been stolen.
I had even money on either being true.
“Which one is it?” I squinted into the midnight darkness.
Kai double-checked his service weapon before pointing to the house right next to us.
“Convenient,” I said as I followed him up what was left of the home’s stairs. Their concrete edges had been sanded away by time into smooth, featureless mounds. Silence settled over the empty street like a ratty blanket.
No lights were on. The broken windows had iron bars over them.
Kai knocked twice. No answer came. He leaned over the wobbly railing and peered into the window.
“Let me see.” I took out the Reaper’s Switch and the hairpin stuck to its duct-taped handle.
“You can’t do—”
The flimsy lock clicked open after a quick jimmy.
I pressed my weight against the door, only to be stymied by a latch chain. But the sharp tip of the four-inch blade was enough to catch one of the rusty loops.
I slipped the chain, and the battered door swung open into a dark living room, inviting us inside.
“It was open,” I said, stepping inside. “We were concerned about a potential crime in progress.”
Kai remained rooted to the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs. “This isn’t how things are done.”
“Someone’s no fun,” I said, and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Eden.”
“Kai.”
This was where most people would just follow you inside with a long, grumbling sigh. But Kai was nothing if not a man of principle. Instead, the broad-shouldered agent sat on the crumbling steps and said, “I don’t like this.”
“Wait in the car, then. You reek of bacon.” I shut the door behind me. No need to let the whole neighborhood know the cops were investigating.
“Don’t take long.” His normally calm tone was strained, like even letting me explore rubbed him the wrong way. It also carried the undercurrent of a warning, like he’d consider leaving—or reporting me—if I went too far.
But I had a killer to hunt down, and a potentially hazardous, island-immolating situation to head off. No time for pesky laws.
Besides, I was a Reaper. I’d done worse things than break into a house that was an insult to crack dens.
That argument probably wouldn’t hold much weight, either morally or in a court of law.
Better make this quick.
I tried stepping softly over the floorboards, but each rotten slab roared in protest at the slightest touch. After four steps, I gave up, consigning myself to the reality that, if Thomas Johns was hiding inside, he already knew I was down here.
The house was a cozy trinity, with a first floor featuring a combined living-dining room and a kitchen sectioned off only by a ratty couch. A quick inspection of the jumbled girlie mags on the table yielded no clues. Ditto the fridge, although the takeout looked fresh, which meant Johns had been home recently.
A back door smeared in dust led out to a cramped backyard that had been overtaken by trash bins. An eight-foot concrete wall, ringed in barbed wire, blocked my view of the adjacent yard.
Thus far, this didn’t look like the residence of a criminal mastermind. Johns had a history of petty crimes, and the unpleasant life to show for his dumb mistakes. Brewing up the Turncoat Curse looked well beyond his paygrade.
But, you know, appearances.
They can be a real bitch.
I tried the closet next to the back door, finding it locked. When I tapped on the chipped wood, an echoing reverb greeted me.
This wasn’t a closet.
It was a basement.
I picked the lock and heard the grungy bronze knob click—but the door still refused to open. No deadbolt or conventional lock held it in place. After slamming my shoulder against the wood and being rejected again, I realized it’d been magically warded.
Thomas Johns, small-time thief, had just got a lot more interesting.
I was about to head upstairs when two sharp honks burst through the broken window. That could only be Kai. They were followed by two more—clearly a warning.
I rushed to the front door. But the knob turned.
I dived behind the ratty sofa.
Kai’s voice drifted through the still night. “Hey, is this your house?”
“Yeah.” Thomas Johns’s voice was squeaky and unintimidating. The type you wouldn’t want to hear too often, unless you hated your ears.
“FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About what, man? I got shit to do.”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
“I know my rights.”
“It’d be a big help.”
The knob rattled as Johns relinquished his grip. My brain snapped into overdrive.
My ass wasn’t the only one on the line, now. Kai had gone out on a flimsy limb for me by announcing himself. The FBI was still a new presence on the island, having been granted jurisdiction by the Supreme Court only half a year or so ago. Aldric’s team of high-powered attorneys would be looking for any excuse to appeal their arrival.
Criminal trespass would be a good start.
I snuck over to the front door as quietly as possible. From the sound of the voices, Johns was right outside.
Not good.
With nowhere else to go, I headed upstairs, pressing my weight against the faded wall to ease the groan of the sagging stairs. It didn’t help much, but Johns didn’t come dashing in, either, so I considered it a win.
The second floor consisted of three rooms: a bathroom at the top of the stairs, a storage closet in the middle, and what could generously be called the master bedroom at the end of the hall. A cursory inspection of the bathroom and closet yielded no escape route, nor any insights into a potential Deadwood-Johns connection.
The master bedroom wasn’t much to look at: double bed, scattered magazines, and a plain ash tray filled with stubby cigarettes. No dresser, no nightstand. A few of the spent cigarettes were slathered in violet lip gloss. I wasn’t sure what woman would voluntarily visit this place, but Johns must’ve had a couple good lines up his threadbare sleeves.
The reading material scattered about the pilling carpet, though, suggested that was a stretch. A Playboy or two would’ve classed up the literature selection.
A quick glance outside the second floor’s barred window told me that Kai was still engaged in conversation with Johns. I could barely see the outline of the man’s wispy frame, since he was on the top step. Their words were muted by the glass.
I kicked the porn mags with my dusty sneaker, but no secret notes spilled out.
Then the front door snapped open and shut like an alligator’s jaws. Taillights flashed against the window, and I watched as Kai’s SUV pulled away slowly.
&nbs
p; I was beginning to get the distinct impression that I was screwed.
“Bastard.” Realistically, though, he couldn’t just camp out indefinitely if he’d only had ‘a few questions.’ That would immediately blow his cover.
And mine.
I hung in the bedroom’s doorway, listening to the floorboards creak below. Johns visited the fridge several times before slumping into the couch. With no television to entertain him, I wondered what he was doing. The magazines were one option that my imagination didn’t appreciate, but I soon heard the tinny strains of a cell phone’s speaker streaming some show.
He watched without reacting in any way. The only sound was the lonely scrape of his fork. After finishing his meal, he did the dishes, and then, much to my chagrin, headed upstairs.
I slipped out of the doorway, back into the master bedroom, now frantic. My pocket buzzed, and for a minute, I had the crazy thought that Thomas Johns was as powerful as the phoenix, or Lucille.
But all my adrenaline was just making me paranoid, because it was a text from Kai.
“Am I okay?” I whispered to myself, the footsteps coming closer. “Do I need backup? Have you been watching this shitshow?”
For some reason, I resisted the urge to demand the cavalry, instead taking one out of General Custer’s book by texting back everything’s fine. Then I pulled out the Reaper’s Switch, waiting for the chips to fall where they would.
Johns was a small guy. Maybe I could wound him before he noticed me.
That wasn’t a high probability bet, but I’d be lying if the gamble didn’t excite me just a little.
The footsteps trailed off into the bathroom, the door latching sturdily shut behind him. The toilet water started splashing, and I shot out of the bedroom, creaky floorboards be damned.
The tenor of the pee changed, suggesting Johns had been startled by the noise and was now pissing on the wall.
I heard him say, “What the hell?”
I took the stairs three at a time.
A beer sat on the living room table next to the porn magazines. But there was something new, too: a brown parcel, about the width and size of a couple library books. Upstairs, I heard Johns’s belt jingle, indicating he’d cut his bathroom break short.
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