Cosmopolitan_Phantom Queen_A Temple Verse Series

by Shayne Silvers

  Of course, that didn’t mean I wanted to get stuck among the huddled masses any longer than I had to. I surveyed the throngs, angling and dipping wherever necessary, my suitcase trailing behind me. Once at the arrivals gate, I scanned the sidewalks for my driver, who I assumed would be holding a sign with my last name splayed across it.

  I needn’t have bothered.

  “Miss MacKenna!” a familiar voice called from outside a set of automatic doors to my left, the Serbian accent so strong and the greeting so loud it turned a few heads besides mine.

  I groaned.

  “It is pleasure to see you again,” Serge said, waving frantically, dressed in the standard uniform of a limousine driver: a black suit, tie, shoes, and cap. The swarthy, pudgy man looked remarkably better dressed than when I’d seen him last, when he’d asked for my protection after being on the run from both his employer and the Academy for several days.

  Serge Milanovich was a skinwalker—a centuries-old witch who’d sacrificed his familiar for unearthly power. In his case, that power manifested itself in a mangy, beastly form that preferred using the royal ‘we’ to describe the various ways it intended to maim and desecrate you. It was very Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde—if Jekyll were a manipulative, middle-aged Serbian man and Mr. Hyde a deranged monster intent on defiling everything it touched.

  It would be fair to say Serge had become a prime contender for my least favorite person after he’d tried to kill me. Twice. He and I had tussled a few weeks back after I set him loose on an unsuspecting park full of civilians—yes, he was that skinwalker. Then, a few days later, I’d saved his miserable hide from a pair of Japanese Justices, only to have him lash out at all of us. We’d both ended up in Academy custody after that, at least until Othello showed up to take us away.

  I’d never found out what happened to Serge after that; part of me hadn’t really wanted to know. As Othello’s employee and part-time bagman, Serge’s lack of loyalty was disturbing—and punishable. I’d expected him to be in a dark hole somewhere, probably back in Siberia, where there were reportedly others like him imprisoned. But it seemed Othello was content to punish him by making him my driver.

  Which was all kinds of rude.

  “Serge,” I said, “what are ye doin’ here?” I rubbed the slight callous that I’d developed on my trigger finger. I hadn’t realized how desperately I would miss my gun, or how soon.

  “I am here as driver, for you. Othello asks me to take you where you wish.”

  “Did she now?” I quipped. “And how am I supposed to trust ye after everythin’ you’ve done?”

  Serge waved me to the side to make way for the various clusters of people hopping into taxis and boarding buses. He displayed his neck, pulling down the edges of his shirt collar to reveal a thin silver choker. “Othello said to not remove this time.” Serge readjusted his suit a bit, grinning.

  “And why do ye seem so pleased?” I asked, baffled. If someone ever put a collar on me it would be a guaranteed death sentence, and yet Serge looked like he was having the time of his life.

  “Circumstances have changed. She is different, not what Serge expected. Nothing like our old master.”

  “Who’s different? Othello?”

  Serge nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

  Othello was his master? Who the hell ran the HR department at Grimm Tech, Christian Grey? “Who was your old master?”

  “Rasputin,” Serge said, then spat on the floor. Several passersby noticed and made faces. I didn’t blame them. “The kripl left us to die in prison, not a word. Until at last Othello frees us and gives us job. At first, I think she is cruel, that we are to her like pawns. But no, she tests us. She gives us chance. She is first to do this in many, many years.”

  I sighed.

  Leave it to Othello to earn the loyalty of the monsters.

  Still, I knew better than to take Serge’s word for it; he’d lied convincingly to my face more than once. If Othello wanted him to drive me around, fine, but I planned to keep my eye on him. “Alright,” I said, “I need ye to take me to me hotel, and then we’re headed to a police station.”

  “Police?” Serge asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “What, are ye worried I’ll turn ye in for what ye pulled in Boston?”

  “Oh, no,” Serge said, adjusting his black cap to scratch his head. “But what will we do with guns?”

  “What guns?”

  Serge chuckled. “Your guns. I buy you. Come, I show.”

  Huh.

  Maybe Serge wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

  Chapter 8

  Serge wasn’t kidding about the guns. As he helped me with my suitcase, storing it in the trunk of the gleaming Lincoln Town Car, he let me briefly admire the duffel bag full of firearms he’d stored there. A quick inventory of what was visible included an MP5, an M4 assault rifle, two sawed-off shotguns, three different pistols of varying sizes, and an Uzi. A real, honest-to-God Uzi. I glanced around, making sure there were no prying eyes nearby—TSA would shit themselves if they knew Serge had this much firepower parked in their garage.

  “We better not get pulled over,” I muttered. If a cop decided to search the car and found this stash, not even one of GrimmTech’s obscenely high-paid attorneys would be able to get us off.

  “No, all are registered to you.”

  I wondered how good Serge’s grasp of the English language really was, for a moment. Surely, he hadn’t said that these guns were all registered to me? “Say that again,” I demanded.

  “Compliments of Othello. She says you want weapon, so Serge find.”

  “Ye bought all these in the last few days? How the hell did ye get ‘em registered under me name?”

  Serge chuckled and shut the trunk. “Buy, yes. Some were shipped. And registration is in computer, yes?”

  I nodded, then rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Of course. She hacked the system.” I realized Serge was holding the door open for me, so I climbed in back. It bothered me a little, having so many guns registered in my name. Ironically, as an arms dealer, I hadn’t really dealt much in firearms. Most artifacts, by definition, lacked modern engineering, which included guns—although there were exceptions I always kept my eye out for. On the other hand, it felt good to know I was loaded for bear, not that I expected to need it.

  “Why did ye buy so many, Serge?” I asked as he turned the engine over.

  Serge used the rearview mirror to glance back at me. “My nose says is good idea.”

  “Your nose?”

  “Yes. This city is full of smells. Some good, some not so good. Some very bad. Now we have better chances.”

  The skinwalker who’d faced down two Academy Justices felt we had better odds of survival with a duffel bag full of guns.

  Great.

  “I try to get bazooka, but is not easy,” Serge said apologetically, mistaking my silence for disapproval.

  I rubbed my temples. A fucking bazooka? “I t’ink we’ll manage without. Let’s go to the hotel,” I said. “I’ll decide what to do with these when we get there.” I tried my best to downplay my enthusiasm; I could hardly wait to empty the duffel bag and play with all the new toys—regardless of how I felt about owning, or needing, them.

  “And no speedin’, ye hear?” I said, as an afterthought. It didn’t matter if they were all registered to me, getting pulled over and caught with this stash would seriously suck; it looked like I was about to rob a bank. Hell, there was enough firepower back there to storm a military base.

  And this was New York, not Texas.

  I decided to skip rolling around on a bed full of guns because one, Darwinism, and two, I had other priorities; I dropped off the guns and headed to the police station unarmed. I hated to do it, but it’d seemed like the smarter option; most had metal detectors and I wasn’t interested in being detained for several hours while they checked my concealed carry paperwork. Besides, if I wasn’t safe surrounded by a building full of armed police officers, I doubted it would make much d
ifference.

  The precinct itself seemed more like a low-rise apartment building than a police station; windows lined the facing entrance, uniformly spaced, the façade drab and unappealing. Even without the address, I’d have been able to spot it from a mile away; a dozen police cruisers were parked outside. Jaywalkers snuck furtive glances at the precinct as they dipped between cars and cut across traffic.

  The front desk was manned by a thin, elderly beat cop with a charming disposition. He sat behind a pane of smudged, bulletproof glass and asked me to sign in, assuring me Detective Ricci would be with me shortly. The lobby was somewhat dingy, the carpet a putrid shade of brown. The coffee was surprisingly good. I finished off two cups of it before Detective Ricci sauntered in nearly twenty minutes later.

  Ricci was a heavyset guy, built like a powerlifter who’d traded in his dumbbells for donuts. With his last name, I’d thought he’d look Italian—olive-skinned with dark hair and dark eyes—but I was wrong; his hair was so blonde it blended seamlessly into his pasty white forehead, and his eyes were a murky blue-green. He and the cop at the front desk shared a few words, then he turned and waved me forward with a bland, mildly amused expression.

  I rose and approached, delighting in the momentary widening of his eyes. Being tall could be a real pain in the ass—finding a big spoon who wouldn’t inhale your hair when you slept, feeling like you were in a gynecologist’s office every time you sat in your friend’s Mini Cooper with your knees in your chest, squatting to turn door knobs with your arms full of groceries—but there were also some serious perks. Like intimidating men who viewed women as demure, dainty creatures. In that instance, my height became a not-so-subtle reminder that some of us could get whatever the hell we wanted off any shelf without their assistance.

  I could open jars, too.

  “Detective Ricci?” I asked, pleased to see his amused expression falter.

  “That’s me,” Ricci said, planting his fists on his hips. “Are you the woman who called earlier? About the girl?”

  I nodded. I’d called from the hotel, checking to make sure Ricci was in the precinct and would be willing to talk with me—sometimes cops were hesitant to discuss open cases with civilians. But the other detective I’d spoken to assured me he would be there and happy to fill me in, so I’d left a message on his voicemail letting him know to expect me. “Her ma and sister asked me to check in,” I confirmed.

  “Well, I’m not sure I can tell you anything I haven’t already told them,” Ricci said, flipping through a small notebook. “We’ve canvassed a few of the clubs in the area around her apartment, but nobody’s seen her. Her neighbors said she moved out but didn’t say where she was going. Of course, it’s only been two weeks. It’s possible she met a boy. Or maybe she’s on a bender, lost her phone, and hasn’t gotten around to calling her mom back.” He shrugged apologetically. “It could be something as simple as that. We’ll keep an eye out, but we’re stretched pretty thin as it is.” Ricci flipped through a manila folder and eyed her picture—an old volleyball photo her mother must have scrounged up. “Shame. She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “Her bein’ pretty is what makes it a shame?” I asked, suddenly itching to pick a fight. It wasn’t that Ricci was wrong; he wasn’t. For all we knew, Terry could have started a job or moved in with a boy or lost her phone—but I knew, instinctually, that Terry would never have kept Tanya out of the loop. That she would have found the time, found a way, to reach out. His jaded take on the situation was likely going to produce no real results. If Terry was going to be found, it wasn’t going to be by someone who could so casually dismiss her disappearance.

  “No, you’re right, that was insensitive,” Ricci said, sounding sincere. He sighed and shut the folder. “Look, I know it’s hard to hear, but sometimes people just disappear. It doesn’t always mean something horrible happened to them. I do hope she’s okay. But I have to prioritize.”

  “Meanin’ what? That’ll it take findin’ her body to convince ye to sort out what happened to her?”

  Ricci’s cheeks flushed in anger. “That’s not what I’m saying.” He paused, closed the folder, and took a deep, soothing breath. All the tension went out of his shoulders. I’ll admit, if I hadn’t been so ticked off by his attitude, I’d have asked him how he managed that little trick; I’d spent hours humping a yoga mat with less result.

  “What I mean, is that,” he continued, “the only way I can do my job and live with myself is if I tackle the cases I can actually solve. Finding out who’s jacking cars in Brooklyn. Tracking down sex traffickers. Putting domestic abusers behind bars. A girl moves to New York City and forgets to call her family for a couple of weeks?” Ricci snorted. “It’s a waste of man-hours.”

  “I hope ye can live with yourself if you’re wrong,” I retorted.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last,” Ricci replied, sounding tired. “Have a good day, miss. We’ll contact the family directly if we find anything.”

  He left.

  The uniformed officer at the front desk hunched forward, tapping on the glass to get my attention. “Sorry for eavesdropping, miss, but I don’t think you were being fair to Detective Ricci.”

  “Is that a cop solidarity t’ing? Sticking up for one of your own, even if he’s a prick?” I asked, still miffed.

  The old man chuckled. “No, he’s definitely a prick. But he’s got his silver lining. He’s one of those detectives who likes playing the odds because it’s safer than following hunches. He’s a career guy, here to put in his time…but that’s not all there is to him.”

  “Like what?” I asked, dubiously.

  “Well,” the old man sat back, “I remember there was this kid who kept getting pulled in a few years back. Dominican, a would-be gangster, always getting into fights or stealing things from convenience stores. It’s tough with the young ones, especially since odds are it’ll only get worse. Anyway, one day Ricci spots the kid on his way home and follows him. He goes up to the door, knocks, and meets the kid’s mom. They talk. Ricci starts dropping by every week, checking in on the kid, making sure he’s staying out of trouble—”

  “How do ye know all this?” I asked.

  The old man held a finger to his lips and winked. Had he been even a few years younger, I’d probably have decked him—but as it stood I’d probably have snapped his scrawny neck if it wasn’t for the glass between us. “Except the kid doesn’t stay out of trouble,” the old codger continued. “He kills a guy. Says it was self-defense, and maybe it was, who knows? He gets time, either way. Ricci going out of his way to check in on the kid every week like he did? That’s a decent thing to do. But I’ll tell you a secret…every Wednesday he drives up to Altona to see that kid. He doesn’t talk about it, but I file the time logs and note the gas mileage. The way I see it, it takes a decent person to try to help someone before they do something terrible. It takes a damn good one to help them after.” He waved and flashed a smile. “Anyway, you have a nice day. Hope they find your girl.”

  I called Othello from the backseat.

  “Hello, Quinn.”

  “Any news for me on Terry?”

  “I’m tracking down a lead right now. Seems she had a few appointments with various talent-seeking types. Most were crossed off on her schedule, but there was a music producer she’d planned to meet the week she disappeared. A pretty big name, too. I can’t tell if your girl kept the appointment, but the producer might be able to tell you more.”

  “Go ahead and send me the name and address, and I’ll have Serge drop me by,” I said, emphasizing the Serbian’s name with a growl.

  “Hello, Miss Othello!” Serge called from the front seat.

  “Shut it, ye mangy bastard,” I hissed, holding my hand over the base of the phone.

  I had to wait for Othello to stop laughing before she responded, ignoring us both, “How’s the hunt for the broker?”

  “We’re stopping by the hotel so I can change,” I said, leaving out the r
eason I needed to change—namely that I wanted to see how many guns I could fit on my person without looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. I considered thanking Othello for having Serge fetch the weaponry, but part of me was still stewing over her giggle-fit. “After that, I’ll be headed to the hotel where he’s stayin’. Ye sure ye have the right room number?”

  “I’m sure,” Othello said. “I have the name on the guest registry, too, but I doubt it will help much. It’s obviously a fake.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. McIntosh.”

  “Well, somebody enjoyed Blank Check.”

  “What?” Othello asked.

  “It’s a movie, about a—nevermind. It’s not important.”

  “You Americans and your movies,” Othello said. I could practically see the eye roll from her tone.

  “I’ll let ye know how it goes,” I said. “Assumin’ he’s even home.”

  “Oh, right. Ask Serge for the thing.”

  “The what?”

  “Just do it,” she insisted, clearly amused.

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Serge!” I yelled.

  His shoulders tensed as he dodged an industrious cabbie lurching from one side of the street to the other. “Yes, Miss MacKenna?”

  “Othello says to ask ye for the t’ing.”

  “Oh!” Serge reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a thin plastic square the size of a credit card, and passed it back to me. I turned it over in my hand—it was surprisingly dense, but smooth.

  A magnetic key to a hotel room door.

  “If he’s not home,” Othello said, “feel free to let yourself in.”