I caught up to Vega on the front porch, where she seized the door handle. She stood back and nodded at my cane. With another “Vigore!” the door blew inward. Vega entered low, swinging her firearm from side to side. I moved in behind her, the final tugs of the hunting spell indicating we had the right address.
“Mayor Lowder,” she called.
“In here,” a man’s voice answered from the next room.
We followed the voice to a large antique-furnished sitting room. To one side of a crackling fireplace, Budge reclined in a leather chair, a brown bathrobe fastened loosely around his belly, his slippered feet propped on an ottoman. He peered at us over a pair of reading glasses, a newspaper spread over his lap.
“Detective,” he said, cordially. “And is that Everson Croft from the gala? Have a seat, have a seat.”
While he gestured to the other chairs in the room, Vega swept the space with her pistol before taking a position where she could watch both doors and the staircase. “I’ll stand, thank you,” she said.
Mayor Budge folded up the newspaper and dropped it on an end table. He swapped his reading glasses for his round pair and finger-combed the cowlick from his brow as he put them on. “Now, what’s this about a family emergency?”
Vega leveled her gun at him. “I’m going to be asking the questions.”
“Whoa there!” Budge showed his hands, his magnified eyes darting between us. “What do you think you’re doing? Hey, you’re a professor,” he said to me. “Talk some sense into her.”
“I think she’s about to make plenty of sense,” I said. “So why don’t you just settle in?”
Budge gave me a look that said, Has the whole city gone crazy?
“Why don’t we start with Mr. Moretti?” Vega said.
“Mr. Moretti? What about him?”
“When did you start contracting him to do jobs for you?”
“The man’s calling my office all the time, trying to get me to do him favors. You think I’d work with him?”
“Got a couple of his men in your yard who would probably say yes,” Vega said. “If I hadn’t shot them dead.”
“Moretti’s men?” Budge swept the hair from his brow again and leaned forward to peer out the window. When he looked back at Vega, his brow bent in confusion. He appeared at an honest loss, but then I remembered the gala and how quickly he could change his demeanor.
“Why don’t we start from the beginning,” Vega said. “When did you find out your wife had a daughter?”
Budge blinked his eyes. “Since before we were married.”
“Yeah, right,” Vega said. “When did you find out what she was?”
“Hey, what’s this about?” Budge asked. “How do you two know so much?”
Vega glanced over at me—not the reaction she was expecting either—before pressing on. “At what point did you decide you wanted her dead? When she left school? When you found out she’d changed?”
“Wanted her dead?” Budge looked from Vega to me in horror. “What is she talking about?”
“Look,” I said. “We know you hired vampire hunters to kill her. We also know you’ve been trying to eliminate anyone and anything that connects your wife—and you—to the creature. And that’s meant contracting out work to Moretti. Makes sense. Someone running for reelection in a close race would do anything to keep a homicidal creature from being attached to his name. Can you imagine what your opponent would do with that?”
“What is this?” he asked, his neck turning red. “Some sort of blackmail job? You trying to set me up for something?”
Vega ignored the act. “Just so you know, I’ve given all the information we’ve uncovered to a third party. If anything happens to us, that information goes public. The hit on Sonny, the attempted hits on us, your dealings with Mr. Moretti. Even if you never see the inside of a courtroom, you’re going to be slammed in the court of public opinion. You’ll be done.” Vega was lying about sharing the info with a third party, but damn, she was selling it well.
“If you have anything you’d like to amend,” I said to the mayor. “We’re all ears.”
Budge looked around the room before sighing and running his hands through his hair. “All right.” When he stood, Vega adjusted her aim, but he only lumbered to the fireplace. He leaned a forearm against the mantel so that he was staring into the flames. “Penny and I met at a dinner party back when I was a city commissioner. Boy, was she something. Turned every last head in the place, but for some reason she had eyes for me.” Budge snorted a laugh. “So we started dating. Before we got too serious, though, I had her checked out, you know?”
“By an investigator?” Vega asked.
“And a diviner,” Budge said. “An old man who lives in Chinatown. Mayor Alito swore by him.” He turned toward me. “Leaders don’t just use oracles in the myths, Professor. Anyway, I found out about her past at the Forty-second Street clubs. And also about her child.”
“I bet that upset you,” Vega said.
“Yeah, but not for the reason you might think. I came up in foster care, you see? Rough place for a kid. I couldn’t stand the thought of her kid in the same system, so I made sure Alexandra was put in a good school.”
“Wait.” I shook my head. “You were Mr. Smith, her sponsor?”
He looked over at me. “Found out about that too, huh? Thought it was the least I could do.”
“Did your wife know?” Vega asked.
Budge waved a hand. “Naw, she never talked about her, so I didn’t either. I put Alexandra through twelve years of school and had her all set up for college without Penny ever knowing. But then I hear Alexandra’s left the boarding school, and the diviner tells me that she’s … she’s turned into some kind of monster, that she’s killing people.”
“And he advised you to destroy her,” I said, trying to preserve the parts of Vega and my theory that still made sense. “To cover up any evidence that might connect Alexandra to your wife or to you.”
“That’s where you keep losing me,” Budge said. “I didn’t hire anyone to do anything like that.”
“But you hired someone to do something else,” I said, the truth rearranging itself and slotting into place. Vega and I had had the right theory, had found the right couple, but we’d reversed their roles. “You hired Arnaud to protect her.”
A nervous tongue darted across Budge’s lips. He dropped his head and nodded. “Hired him to capture her, actually. Takes a vampire to catch a vampire, you know? I wanted to get her some help.”
“And you made him promise not to tell anyone,” I said.
“Wait a sec.” Budge’s hands balled into hairy fists. “Was he the one who told you all of this?”
“No, in fact,” I said, which was the truth—and no doubt at least part of the point of Arnaud’s game. But what could Budge have possibly offered Arnaud in payment? The vampire was already a billionaire.
“Hold on a sec,” Vega said, realization creeping over her face now. “If you hired Arnaud to protect your daughter, then—”
“His wife must be the big, bad wolf,” someone finished.
I looked up, and there she was: the half-werewolf who wanted her daughter dead. Who wanted us dead. Penny Lowder strode down the staircase in a blue business skirt and jacket, her dyed-blond hair, usually fastened up, falling almost to her waist, loose and luxurious. Surgery no doubt masked her likeness to the young woman she’d once been. But with her veneer of submissiveness shed, I could feel her true nature, could see it radiating from her lupine eyes.
Vega trained her pistol on Penny, but the mayor’s wife wasn’t alone. Security guards flanked her, while others filled the two doorways to the sitting room. I sensed werewolf in them, too. With a Word, I reinforced the shield around Detective Vega and me, wondering how long I could hold it.
“Why don’t you go upstairs, honey,” Penny said to Budge. “We’ll discuss your naughtiness later.”
Budge nodded quickly, eyes large with fear, and hustled up the stairs and out of s
ight. I returned my attention to Penny, the power behind the mayoral throne. She stopped at a central landing.
“Now,” she said in a growling voice. “What to do with these two?”
37
“You’re the one who hired the vampire hunters and Moretti’s men,” I said, still not quite believing it. “You had Sonny killed. You put the hits on Vega and me and probably anyone else with information that would connect you to your daughter.”
“I’m not going to confirm or deny anything,” Penny said as the guards filed around her and down the steps. “But aren’t we all after the same thing? Getting a killer off the streets? Keeping the citizens of New York safe?”
“Making sure your husband is reelected?” Vega said. “Keeping your hold on power?”
“What you think you know about my motives or past is inconsequential.” She glanced at the guards. “Especially under the present circumstances.”
“If anything happens to us—” Vega started to say.
“Ah, the threat.” Penny grinned. “I heard everything you told my husband. The difference between my husband and me is that I can smell a lie.” Her narrow nostrils flared out. “And you’re giving off the sour odor, Detective. A good thing, because I do need you taken care of.”
I cinched my grip on my cane as I counted the guards. At least twelve that I could see.
“Kill the intruders,” Penny ordered.
The guards’ snarling faces elongated, sprouting teeth and hair. Arms thickened and burst from uniform sleeves.
I created a firing line in Vega’s shield as she squeezed off her first shots. A lunging werewolf seized his chest and fell forward, already reverting to his human form. Others swarmed over him, ears pinned back, jaws snapping against the shield. I had a cold flashback to Romania.
You possess magic now that you didn’t then, I reminded myself.
Even so, what magic I possessed would only keep them off us for so long.
I drew my revolver and patted where my outer coat pockets would have been before realizing I had left my coat on Alexandra. No coat meant no more ammo. I released the revolver’s cylinder and looked.
Three bullets.
A force jarred me, and the revolver fell from my hands. The werewolves were coordinating their attack, pulling back and then slamming into the shield at the same time, their supernatural strength rattling our protection all the way to my mental prism. And with the beasts coming in low, Vega’s shots were tearing into shoulders and heads more so than chests.
“Respingere!” I cried.
The shield pulsed, shoving the werewolves back, allowing me time to stoop and retrieve the revolver. But the chamber only held one bullet now. I found one of the dislodged bullets beside my shoe but couldn’t see where the other one had clattered off to. Dammit. I pushed the silver bullet into the next slot and, with a wrist flick, snapped the chamber closed. Though Vega had dropped a couple more werewolves, the rest quickly reassembled.
“How you doing for ammo?” I shouted.
“Just reloaded,” Vega replied, squinting down her gun’s sights.
The werewolves rammed into the shield again, causing it to flicker.
“I’ll set them up, you knock them down,” I said through gritted teeth. “Like we did outside.”
Vega nodded quickly.
“Vigore!” I cried, willing a force from the ground into one of the retreating werewolves. The force caught him under the chin, knocking him up and back, exposing his chest. Vega didn’t miss. The shot blew through the werewolf’s sternum, and we were down to eight.
The remaining werewolves let out savage barks, their eyes blazing yellow, bared fangs running with saliva. The deaths of their pack members seemed only to be making them more mindless, which was to our advantage.
With their next charge, I shouted another Word. The uppercut-like force bared another werewolf’s chest, and Vega finished the job.
We’re winning, I thought as the shield stood up to the collision of the remaining wolves. We’re going to get out of this.
Shouting Word after Word, I flung the werewolves up, and Vega shot them dead. When the final werewolf fell and became human, I looked around for Penny. She was no longer on the staircase. I was opening my mouth to ask Vega if she’d seen where the mayor’s wife had gone when the window behind us shattered. I wheeled as a massive stone planter ricocheted off the shield.
The two wolves outside aimed large-diameter hose nozzles. Water blasted through the window, spattering my shield and flooding the room. The magic I wielded fizzled and sparked. Vega leveled her firearm at the werewolves and squeezed, but no explosion followed.
“I’m out,” she shouted.
“So are we,” I said, taking her arm. The running water was drowning my magic, and we were down to two bullets. I pulled her into the foyer as my shield dispersed with a soggy pop. Through the blown-open front door, I could see the werewolves coming around to head us off.
“The window,” Vega said, pulling me back into the reading room.
We splashed toward the shattered window. Taking the end of a waterlogged rug, I heaved the thick fabric over the window’s jagged lower frame and then lifted Vega so she was sitting on it. She wasted no time swinging her legs around and dropping the three feet into a flower bed.
I was preparing to follow when I heard snarling behind me.
The two werewolves had entered the reading room and were running toward me. I drew my revolver and squeezed twice. The point-blank shots nailed their chests, dropping them to the parquet floor.
Nice shooting, Tex, I thought, looking down at their melding bodies. But you’re out of ammo now.
Meaning it was really time to get going. We had identified Alexandra’s mother as the First Lady of New York City. More than that, we had discovered that she was the one trying to kill her daughter. Somewhere in there was the information Arnaud had wanted us to find.
“Oh, and you were so, so close,” Penny said.
I turned to find her sauntering in from the foyer, dragging Detective Vega by her hair. The blood fell from my face. I jerked my leg back inside and shot to my feet, revolver raised.
“Drop her,” I said, cocking the hammer on the empty weapon.
Penny jerked Vega up and around, clutching her in front of her, a human shield. “I will when you toss your weapon. Go on. Out the window.”
I didn’t move.
Penny dug her nails into the skin on either side of Vega’s trachea. “Would you rather I tear out her throat?”
I sighed and did as she said, the revolver thumping onto the grass.
Penny deposited Vega in the same chair where the mayor had been reading. Beneath the light of the standing lamp, I caught a knot of bruising beneath Vega’s right eye.
“Let her go,” I said. “She has nothing to do with this.”
Penny chuckled as she sat on the armrest, her fingers still clamping Vega’s throat. “Such chivalry, Everson. But she has plenty to do with this. Now have a seat.” She nodded toward a hard couch that had tipped over during the melee. “I’m going to ask you some questions. If you don’t want to watch your partner die horribly, you’re going to answer them.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, quickly righting the couch and lowering myself to the edge.
“And keep your feet in the water.”
I looked down to where shallow waves lapped against the soles of my shoes. Water was a poor conductor of magic, and she knew it.
“Question number one,” Penny said. “How did you learn that Alexandra was my daughter?”
“Good detective work,” I replied.
Penny’s nails dug deeper into the skin around Vega’s throat. “Try again.”
“Your old boss told us. Sonny.”
“One more lie and she dies.”
I glanced around for anything I could use as a weapon. No matter how I answered, her plan was to ultimately kill us both. My gaze fell to the bodies of the fallen werewolves. If only I hadn’t expend
ed all my damn silver.
“How did you learn Alexandra was my daughter?” she repeated.
“Why do you care?” I said. “Afraid that if you don’t tie up all the loose ends you won’t be able to pull your husband’s strings anymore?”
Her eyes narrowed in a way that told me I was skating on paper-thin ice. But I needed time to come up with something. Penny probably only had one or two questions. The minute I handed her the answers, Vega and I were history. At the very least I needed to spare Vega that fate.
“You must not care for your partner very much,” Penny said.
“Fine, I’ll tell you.” I blew out my breath. “It was Arnaud Thorne.”
“Arnaud?” Penny sniffed for a lie.
“That’s right.”
A look of worry or anger deepened the lines around her eyes. I stole a glance at the hearth. The jets of water had doused the fire, but a few embers continued to glow below the grate. I could work with that. While Penny grappled with the revelation, I shifted back on the couch and lifted my feet just above the water.
“Why?” Penny demanded. “What does he want?”
I silently summoned energy to my casting prism before shrugging. “Maybe he just doesn’t like you.”
Penny’s eyes blazed orange, and her fingers bit into Vega’s throat.
“Fuoco!” I shouted. Energy coursed through me in fits and starts, gained strength, and then opened out in the embers. A fireball roared from the hearth. Penny screamed as it swallowed her. I stood and drew my cane, shouting another Word. The force invocation sling-shot Vega from Penny’s faltering grip toward my waiting arms. She was coming in too fast, though. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs and both of us to the floor.
Beyond my soaked legs, Penny was roaring and beating the flames that climbed her hair. Foul smoke filled the room. I forced myself to stand, pulling Vega up beside me. She coughed weakly.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
“I’ll live,” she said hoarsely.
Good, because I could feel Thelonious licking his chops, waiting for me to exhaust myself with another high-energy spell. With an arm wrapped around Vega’s waist, she and I splashed from the reading room. At the front door, I pushed her across the threshold but remained inside.
Blood Deal (Prof Croft Book 2) Page 21