“You look like shit, Santori,” Murphy, the desk sergeant on duty, said. “Ghosts keepin’ ya up nights or did ya have a hot date?”
Donata made a mental note to return the concealer to the shop where she’d bought it. Cheap shit.
“Just working my butt off to make up for the lazy guys on the force who sit behind a desk all day,” she retorted. She wished she’d gotten a second cup of coffee.
Murphy grinned at her. “I may be lazy, but at least I get here on time, Santori.” He sorted through some papers on a clipboard. “Got a message for ya from the Chief. He wants ya to report to his office as soon as ya get in.” A good-natured smirk split his wide Irish face. “I believe his exact words were: tell her to haul her ass into my office ASAP.”
Aw, double crap with a side of more crap.
The coffee roiled in the pit of her stomach, making her feel a little green around the gills. Terrific—that ought to go with the dark circles perfectly.
“Did he say what he wanted to talk to me about, Sarge?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
He shrugged beefy shoulders. “I just pass on the messages, Santori. But he didn’t sound happy. I don’t know what the hell ya did, but I’m glad I’m not in your shoes. Just sayin’.” He winked at her. “And I’d get going if I was you.”
Donata made her way across the lobby to the stairs and walked slowly up one flight to the Chief’s office. The institutional gray paint and scuffed risers did nothing to improve her mood. In the long hallway, one failing fluorescent light buzzed and hummed manically.
She hoped that whatever he wanted to talk to her about was something only marginally horrible and not at all her fault, like another Paranormal murder. But somehow, she didn’t think so. When the Chief said “ass” instead of “butt,” you knew you were in trouble.
Bracing herself, she knocked twice. Her fist had barely touched the wood the second time when the door was yanked open and the man himself stood in front of her, looking like ten pounds of fury in a five-pound bag.
“Nice of you to show up, Santori,” he said. “Now get your ass in here and explain this to me.”
He walked over to his desk and picked up a piece of paper, waving it around as though it was a snake that might bite him. Donata followed him in and closed the door behind her. If he was going to scream at her, she’d rather the entire precinct not know about it.
She moved toward him, hands wrapped nervously around each other. “What is it you wanted me to explain, sir?”
He rattled the paper again. “How about you start with why Doc Havens apparently signed a death certificate for a guy who wasn’t involved in any crime that falls under our jurisdiction?”
Donata rocked back on her heels. This was about Raphael’s body? Triple crap with cream. Not only was she in trouble, now she’d gotten Doc into trouble with her.
“Um, how do you even know about that, sir?” she asked hesitantly.
The Chief’s brows pulled together, wiry gray hairs like an exclamation point to his anger. “I know everything that happens in my damned precinct,” he said. “That, and a friend of mine happens to be chief at the fire station the ambulance came from. When a report crossed his desk that mentioned the name of my head coroner, he very helpfully sent me a copy, thinking it must have something to do with a case.” He stared at her with narrowed eyes. “So tell me, Santori, did this dead body have anything to do with a case?”
Donata swallowed hard. “Well, no. I mean, maybe yes, but officially, no.”
He took a deep breath and clenched his fists, crumpling the paperwork still grasped in his right hand. If he’d been a Dragon, there would have been steam coming out of his nostrils. As it was, Donata thought he might be the first Human to ever reproduce the phenomenon.
“I thought there was something funny about Doc’s involvement with this thing,” he said. “And when I called over and talked to the EMT who delivered the body, and he mentioned the good-looking female officer who was with Doc Havens at the time, I knew you were behind it somehow. Would you like to explain to me why my top medical examiner is collecting the body of a man who is listed of dying from a lightning strike?”
The EMT thought she was good looking? Cool. Donata dragged her exhausted mind back to the subject at hand, trying to figure out a way to get Doc out of trouble without getting herself in even deeper. Nothing came to her.
“She was doing a favor for me,” Donata admitted. “The dead man was a full-blooded Dragon, my friend Peter’s father. When Raphael was killed in public and the ambulance guys insisted that the body had to be declared dead by someone official, Peter panicked because he was afraid the body would show up as Paranormal, and he called me.”
The Chief subsided a bit, his anger temporarily replaced by curiosity. “And would it have?”
Donata lifted one shoulder. “To be honest, I have no idea. Dragon physiognomy wasn’t discussed at length in Witch School. But considering everything that’s been happening lately, I didn’t want to take the chance. So when Doc volunteered to take care of it, I jumped at the offer.” She bit her lip. “It was my responsibility, sir. Please don’t blame Doc.”
“She’s an adult, Santori,” he said gruffly, but the fire had gone out of his eyes. “And usually as dependable as they come. So I’ll let it slide this time. But you can’t use the department’s resources like they were your own personal toolbox. If there was no crime involved, neither of you should have had anything to do with this.”
“Oh, but there was a crime, sir,” she said, relaxing a little bit now that it seemed like he wasn’t going to fire her after all. “We’re pretty sure that Peter’s father was murdered. There’s just no way to prove it.”
Her boss’s eyes widened and he gestured her to the chair in front of his desk. It was hard and uncomfortable, but she was happy to sit down and give her shaking knees a rest.
“Okay, Santori, now you can explain that statement.” He eased his bulky body into his own seat and straightened out the paper in his hand. “The EMT’s report says that the man was struck by a freak bolt of lightning while playing golf. Unless someone forced him to play and the damned game bored him to death, I fail to see how this could possibly be a murder case.”
Donata tried to force her tired brain to work. She should definitely have gotten that second cup of coffee.
“Do you remember me telling you that there were stories about a missing sixth Paranormal race, one that no one seemed to remember?”
He scratched his chin with one stubby finger. “Vaguely. I was more concerned at the time with what you were telling me about all the other races that I’d only suspected existed. Didn’t that damned Pentimento painting figure into it somehow?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Peter and I were working on figuring out clues from the painting that could help us identify the missing race. After the mess six months ago, Peter and his father Raphael carried on with the work, and I went back to help Peter with it after his father died.”
“How did they do that, Santori?” the Chief asked her, suspicion seeping into the craggy planes of his face. “Isn’t that painting still down in our lockup?”
Odin’s buttocks. Her and her big mouth. Goddess, she needed to get more sleep—especially if she was going to be lying to her boss. She regrouped fast. “Um, yes. Yes, it is. Peter made a copy.” She didn’t think it would be helpful to mention that the copy was the one currently sitting in the evidence locker.
“Oh, okay.” He leaned back in his chair, making it creak dangerously under his weight. The Chief wasn’t overweight, just a massive carved-rock mountain of a man. “But how does this get us to murder?”
“I recently discovered the identity of the missing sixth race,” she said. She figured it would be better to let him think the discovery came directly from their explorations of the painting, rather than getting into her own b
izarre family history. Not to mention trying to explain her great-aunt Tatiana. She’d need a lot more caffeine before she attempted that one.
“Oh?” That got his attention, and he sat straight back up. “And you think this mysterious race somehow murdered your friend’s father? Did they use some kind of magic?” He gave a small involuntary shudder at the thought.
Donata shook her head. “No, sir. They murdered him with actual lightening. It turns out that the sixth race is called the Major Anemoi, and they are non-corporeal beings that can manipulate weather and other natural elements such as earthquakes and storms. They were so powerful in earlier days that people in many cultures worshipped them as gods.”
The Chief’s mouth dropped open and he just sat there for a moment. Finally, he said, “Please tell me you’re joking.”
She grimaced, the corners of her mouth turning down. “Sorry, sir. I wish I could. Apparently these Anemoi are concerned that the Human population is actively destroying the earth, and so they’re striking back. I’m pretty sure that they’re the ones behind the increase in Paranormal crime and that they’re agitating to get the other races to attack Humans. They also seem to be behind the recent increase in natural disasters all over the world.”
The Chief didn’t say anything for a moment. Eventually he got up and turned his back on Donata, moving to stare out the window in silence. The clock on the wall ticked loudly into the void.
Since she knew his office overlooked the same parking lot hers did, albeit with bigger windows, it didn’t seem likely that there was anything going on down there to capture his interest. His continued stillness made her nervous.
“Chief?” she said after another few minutes had passed. “Are you okay?”
“No, Santori, I am not okay,” he said without turning around. “I’m an old man, damn it. I’ve been working as a cop since I was twenty years old, and I’m only a year away from retirement. Hell, I could have taken early retirement four years ago with a full pension; now I’m thinking I should have done it.”
He sighed and swiveled to face her, the harsh light from the window behind him delineating every line carved by time and a tough job. “Part of the reason I stayed was to deal with this Paranormal stuff, since nobody else seemed to have a clue. When you finally stepped up and started helping me out, I thought I’d been right to stick with it.”
Moving slowly, like the older man he rarely seemed to be, he returned to sit in front of Donata.
“I can handle Witches,” he said. “I can even handle Ghouls and Fae and all the rest that you’ve told me about. But how am I supposed to arrest something that can cause earthquakes and doesn’t have a physical form?” He took his reading glasses off to scrub at his eyes, then stuffed them in a pocket. “I’m out of my depth here, Santori. If you say these Anemoi murdered your friend’s father, I believe you. But I have no idea what to do about it.”
Chapter Forty-seven
“Believe it or not, I’m working on that, sir,” Donata said. She hated to see the Chief so discouraged. And of course it was her fault, like most things seemed to be lately. Maybe she was the one who should retire.
He arched an eyebrow. “And how exactly are you planning on arresting these creatures if you can’t even hold them? Or is this some more of your mysterious Council justice?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “The Alliance Council won’t even admit the Major Anemoi exist,” she said bitterly.
The eyebrow went higher. “Then how do you propose to deal with the issue of hunting down and confining a non-corporeal former god, Santori? Because if you can pull that off, I might have to give you a raise.”
A raise? Put the retirement on hold. “There isn’t much I can do about the non-corporeal ones,” she said. “But in order to interact with the Paranormals they’re inciting to violence, some of them have to be taking physical form. I discovered a way to identify these Major Anemoi, even though they look completely Human otherwise.”
Donata pulled the Chief’s notebook toward herself and drew three symbols on the paper.
“What are those supposed to be, Santori? I don’t read Greek.”
“It’s not Greek,” she said. “It’s Hebrew. These are the letters aleph, mem, and tov. Put together, they spell truth.” She paused before dropping her next bomb. “Ever hear of golems?”
He scratched his head. “Sounds familiar. Isn’t that something to do with zombies?” He shuddered again in involuntary reaction. “Please tell me we’re not dealing with zombies too. I draw the line at zombies.”
She laughed. “No, no zombies. Golems were supposedly inanimate bodies that were given life by sorcerers and the like. You can find them in old Jewish stories. But it turns out that this is the method the Major Anemoi use to take temporary physical form. Four of them working together take the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water and somehow make it take on the semblance of a human being.”
The Chief blinked. “Huh. That’s a new one. But what does that have to do with these symbols?” He aimed one stubby forefinger at the piece of paper she’d drawn on.
“There is something about the process that produces these markings on the back of the Major Anemoi’s neck when it takes on a golem body,” she explained. “When I first saw them on Anton, I thought they were just some kind of tattoo, but apparently all the materialized Major Anemoi have them. So we can use this to help us identify the ones we’re looking for.”
Her boss looked at her quizzically. “Who the hell is Anton, and why does he have these marks?”
Donata felt like she was trying to walk over quicksand in weighted boots. “Um. Well, Anton is this guy I was dating—Anton Eastman—and I just found out that he is one of them. But not one of the bad ones. According to him there are two factions; the Cleansers and the Melders, and the Cleansers are the ones who are causing all the trouble.” She hoped that came out more coherently than it sounded to her, but somehow she doubted it.
The Chief pushed himself back in his chair so the front legs left the ground and he looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then he shifted his gaze back to her and said meaningfully, “So you’re saying you’ve been dating one of these Major Anemoi and you didn’t even know it?”
She nodded, afraid to say anything more.
“Anton Eastman—would that be Anton Eastman the billionaire industrialist? The one who is never seen in public?”
She nodded again.
“Jesus Christ, Santori,” he said, exhaling loudly. “Are you trying to kill me?” He brought the chair back down to earth with a clunk. “So there are good Anemoi and bad Anemoi? How the hell are we supposed to tell them apart?”
Well, that was a damned good question. “I guess that the good ones won’t be trying to foment riots?” she ventured. “I still have to do some more digging. I did find some interesting research on golems, but I need to keep working on it. Anton told me that the Cleansers are trying to strike back at Humans who are despoiling the earth, so I’m guessing they might target some of the companies that contribute the most to pollution. I thought I’d see if any of those companies have had strange weather-related deaths recently, and go from there.”
The Chief pursed his lips. “That’s pretty sound detective work, Santori. We might make a cop of you yet.” He thought for a moment. “So, your friend’s father, Raphael. Was he some kind of major environmental menace? Is that why they killed him?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “I think he might have been murdered because he was working on the painting . . .” The words dried up in her mouth as a terrible thought occurred to her. She could feel the blood draining from her face.
“Santori? Donata, are you okay?” The Chief’s craggy face softened with worry.
Her heart spasmed in her chest. “Ricky was right,” she whispered. “I’ve been such a gullible fool.” She would have bashed her head against the desk in front of her
if she thought it would have served any purpose.
“Ricky?” the Chief said, baffled. “Who the hell is Ricky? Another Anemoi? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m an idiot, that’s what’s wrong with me,” she said around the truth that tightened her throat. “When I was talking to Anton last night, he said that Peter didn’t want me, that he was just using me to help him work on the painting.”
The Chief shrugged. “Sounds like this Anton is just jealous. Jealous men say a lot of stupid things. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Donata shook her head. “You don’t understand, Chief. I never told Anton about the painting. There was no way he should have known about it. And he called Peter ‘the Dragon’s son.’ How could he know whose son Peter was? It was Anton all along, and I was just too blind to see it.” She patted her jacket wildly, trying to find the pocket her phone was in. “I have to call Peter and warn him. If Anton killed his father to get at the painting, he could be coming after Peter next!”
Chapter Forty-eight
Ignoring the Chief’s barrage of questions, Donata frantically punched in Peter’s number. There was no answer. She tried the house number. Still nothing; not even a busy signal.
“Something is wrong,” she said, unable to catch her breath. “I can’t get through. It’s like there’s no phone on the other end. And I tried both the cell and the landline.”
Her boss waved a calming hand at her and reached out for the phone that sat on his desk. “What’s the address? I’ll check with the desk sergeant to see if he’s heard of any outages. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
Donata wrote down Raphael’s address for him, but looked doubtful. “It’s outside of town, sir. Out of our jurisdiction.”
He smiled reassuringly. “Murphy and the other duty sergeants make it their business to keep an ear out for whatever is going on in the area. If anything interesting is happening anywhere in a fifty-mile radius, I guarantee you Murphy knows about it.”
Veiled Menace Page 26