The Curse Mandate (The Dark Choir Book 3)

by J. P. Sloan

  “Goodness!” the woman exclaimed. “What is this about?”

  “A statue, ma’am,” he replied with a boorish look in my direction. “Public art. We need to ask you a couple questions.”

  After a considerable pause, during which Turner nearly hit the button again, the front door opened and an older woman with silver hair pulled up into a tight bun emerged from the house. She glided down the short flight of steps and up to the gate with grace. She paused well shy of the gate, however, and gave the three of us a long evaluation.

  “Your badge, detective?”

  He nodded and produced it, holding it close to the gate.

  She took a step forward and squinted through the iron, giving the badge a tremendous amount of scrutiny. I nodded to Malosi, glad that we bothered to bring an actual cop. This woman was careful.

  Once she seemed satisfied, she reached out and opened the gate for us. Her face pulled back into a tense yet polite grin.

  “Very well. Follow me, please.”

  She turned and moved back up the walkway. The three of us followed, Malosi hopping forward to hold the door for her.

  “Thank you, young man,” she chimed as we entered the foyer.

  Turner stepped inside without much more than a grunt.

  Malosi paused at the door, as did I.

  The energy sealing this doorway was, in a word, electric.

  Realizing we’d just been invited into the house of an obvious practitioner, I kept my gaze forward and my energy tight to keep from giving away our intentions. It was probably a bad idea, truth be known. Stepping directly into the house of who was probably behind this entire attack on the Presidium… and by the look of the house, a well-funded attack… was a good way to put us at a Hell of a disadvantage.

  Malosi, for his part, played it way cooler than I did.

  The old woman gestured for the front room bearing one of the bay windows hanging off the front of the house, and reached for a white shawl draped across a divan to gather around her shoulders.

  Turner gave me a nod. “Your show, Lake.”

  At that moment, I regretted volunteering to do the talking. I needed to feel the room, attempt to isolate and identify specific energies and constructs. I couldn’t do that and put on a song-and-dance at the same time.

  “Yes. You are Petra de Haviland? Is that correct?”

  She nodded once.

  “Ah. Yes. Good. And, you’ve been appointed to the Mayor’s Public Enrichment Committee?”

  “I am happy to serve the city with any means at my disposal.”

  “Swell,” I replied, wincing at my total lack of composure. “There is a statue that was erected in a playground not far from here. Just off the twelve-hundred block of Charles Street. We’ve received a complaint about some lettering found within the statue itself. Symbols with anti-Semitic connotations.”

  She held up a finger and pointed to Turner. “Detective Grant Turner,” she pronounced before shifting her finger to Malosi, and then to me. “I did not hear your names.”

  Damn but this old woman was cautious!

  I sucked in a breath, trying to arrive at a quick decision whether she’d heard Turner say my name already, and if I should chance lying to a practitioner in her own home. Happily, a pair of footfalls from the plank-floored hallway interrupted our moment.

  Petra turned back toward the hallway.

  “Clarence? The police are here. They have questions about some art project.”

  A voice grumbled with precisely zero enthusiasm, and the footsteps approached the archway to the front room.

  I turned to greet Clarence, trying to lock down my demeanor unless I end up spraying nervous energy all over this property.

  But as I locked eyes with the man who for the past two years I had known simply as Brown, my energetic composure popped like a water balloon.

  n my defense, Brown seemed as blind-sided as I was. He had always gone by his pseudonym. A wise choice, being a prominent upper-crustacean as he apparently was. It took a bizarre series of circumstances to drop me directly into his sitting room. The Cosmos, it seemed, wasn’t done screwing with my karma just yet.

  “Gentlemen,” he intoned without breaking eye contact with me.

  My brain froze up. What the hell was I going to say?

  Petra rounded around Brown… Clarence, whatever… and folded her hands over her arms.

  “I was just getting their names. They seem a bit flummoxed.”

  Malosi stepped forward.

  “Reed Malosi.” He extended his hand to the two. Neither of them reacted. Malosi nudged me. “And this is…”

  I cleared my throat. “Dorian Lake.”

  “Are you police, as well?” Petra asked.

  Clarence continued staring at me, before blinking and turning to his wife. “They work for Sullivan, dear. I’ve met Mister Lake before. Nothing to fear.”

  She explained, “They’re asking about some sort of racist statue. Swastikas, I believe? I can’t honestly believe they’d erect a statue with swastikas in the city. That defies all belief.”

  “Not swastikas, ma’am,” Malosi said. “Runes. Old Norse alphabet. When translated, the content was considered objectionable.”

  She shook her head. “What kind of content?”

  I looked Clarence in the eye, and replied, “Curse words.”

  The barest squint haunted the corner of his left eye.

  Malosi added, “We’re responding to an allegation of hate speech. We just want to have a word with the artist that made it―”

  I interrupted, still looking at Clarence, “―and how it managed to get erected in a nice, quiet neighborhood over committee objections.”

  His other eye flickered.

  With a sigh, Petra spun around. “I’m sure I have some information in my office. A lot of harangue over profanity. Clearly the permissive society has reached a limit of bowel continence. If you’ll follow me?”

  Turner shrugged and followed. Malosi moved slower, stepping toward me. I kept my eyes from meeting his.

  As we reached the foyer, Clarence called behind me, “Oh, Mister Lake. A moment?”

  I finally looked up to Malosi, and gave him a nod. He followed Turner to the rear of the house, and I turned back to face Brown.

  His face burned with loathing, but in a voice belying his expression, he chirped, “How have you been?”

  “Comfortable,” I answered.

  He took a step closer. “And how is Mayor Sullivan these days?”

  “Doing very well, thank you.”

  With some unspoken cue that the others had left earshot, he took another step forward and dropped his voice to a growling whisper.

  “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

  I answered in a matching tone, “Why the hell is there a niding pole in a public park?”

  He rushed around my shoulder, gripping my arm as he peered around the archway.

  “Quiet, you dolt.”

  “She has no idea what you are, does she?” I whispered.

  “I’ve taken great pains to ensure that would be the case. And I will inflict great pains upon anyone who informs her otherwise.”

  I grinned. “I’m not here to out you… Clarence.”

  “Get out!”

  “I find it curious that your wife sits on the committee that gave this niding pole the greenlight. What, did you take it upon yourself to wipe out Zeno’s lodge?”

  He sneered. “I had nothing to do with that. Zeno was an asset.”

  “Yeah, well, now he’s gone off-grid. And he’s one of the lucky ones.”

  “I told you to get out of my house.”

  I leaned into his ear. “You’re not involved with these foreign cabals attacking the Presidium, are you? I’d find that supremely disappointing.”

  He gave me a shove in the sternum, and I caught myself on the divan.

  With eyes brimming with acid, he whispered, “You forget who I am.”

  “Hey, I’m working for
the Presidium now. I’m one of you people. An asset.”

  Clarence smirked. “Idiot. You’re not working for the Presidium. You’re working for Adrastos.”

  I squinted, and rebuffed, “…who happens to be the head of the Presidium.”

  “Our organization is a maze of layers, Lake. You’ve mistaken collaboration for solidarity.”

  “You’re saying the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing?”

  He shook his head. “I’m saying the left hand doesn’t know what its own thumb is doing. And if you have any investment with Adrastos, I’d recommend you surrender this idiotic crusade for foreign cabals.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He sighed, looked over to his window, and rolled his shoulders.

  “Not here. Tonight. Ellicott City. Meyer Livery.”

  “The what, now?”

  “Meet me at 9 p.m. at the Meyer Livery in Ellicott City. Come alone. And that most specifically means leaving your muscle behind.”

  I peered at the foyer. “I’ve been ditching him a lot, lately. I’m not all that inclined to trust you at the moment.”

  He snickered. “Dear God, Lake. I may be the one person in this city you can trust.”

  I took a step forward, readying a scorching response, but Petra’s voice rang into the hallway.

  We both turned back to the archway, and composed ourselves.

  Clarence added, “Come tonight. Come alone. If you want to survive this.” He vaulted his voice into a strong, warm timbre. “Well, be sure to tell Ms. Claye we’re with her.”

  Petra stepped into the room with Malosi and Turner behind.

  “We’re with whom, dear?” she asked.

  “Ms. Claye. Our dear Mister Lake, here, has leant her support.” He turned to me. “And I wanted him to know that she is in our thoughts.”

  I steeled my guts. What did that mean?

  Petra waved her hand. “She’s a bit out of her depth, don’t you think?”

  Clarence gave her a smile. “I feel, at some point, we all find ourselves out of our depths. It’s a good thing we have people like Mister Lake to depend on.”

  She tilted her head at me. “Well, I had no idea you were such a valuable person.”

  I bowed. Just a little.

  “Did we find anything?” I asked over her shoulder to Malosi.

  He held up a tiny scrap of note paper. “An address of the studio where the thing was made.”

  “Good enough.” I pushed my hands together. “I apologize for this intrusion, Mister and Missus de Haviland. We’ll be on our way.”

  I herded the others to the door.

  Petra called from the archway, “Do tell Mrs. Sullivan I said hello.”

  “I will. I think I’m having dinner with them―” I checked my watch, then swore under my breath. “Tonight.”

  “Oh, how lovely.”

  I beat the others to the street. Malosi wasn’t far behind, but Turner took his time.

  “So, jerkoffs,” he bellowed, “what was all of that about?”

  “Nothing. Dead end.”

  “Bull crap.” He grinned and thrust his thumb at the row house. “You was on eggshells in there. You found something, right? These people involved with the Charles Street murders?”

  They weren’t involved. But Clarence might have known who was.

  “No chance,” I answered. “Just a really weird house.”

  He glared at me, then turned to take in the house.

  “Yeah. Old buildings give me the running shits, too.”

  He moved around to the driver side of the car.

  Malosi stood directly beside me. “Good guy or bad guy?”

  “Probably both,” I mumbled. “He’s certainly not a good person, but he knows something. And he knows that I don’t.”

  To his credit, Turner didn’t hold us to buying him lunch. He was happy to be rid of us, and drove us directly back to the tavern. I spent the trip scheming up a means to ditch the Sullivan soiree in order to meet Brown in Ellicott City. The good news was that Malosi wasn’t invited to the event, so I wouldn’t have to shake him. The bad news?

  Julian was.

  Malosi and I stepped into the tavern and were struck in the face by the smell of bacon. My stomach growled immediately, reminding me how much I’d been neglecting it as of late. Ben sat at the customer side of the bar housing a plate of potato skins. I sidled up beside him with a hungry eye on his plate.

  “This is new,” I chirped.

  Ben gave me a sour cream-smeared grin, and spoke around a mouthful of potato mash. “Kitchen’s up.”

  “Do we have a menu?”

  He reached behind the bar and produced a slip of paper, likely printed in Julian’s office and hand-cut with scissors. Typical pub grub.

  I handed Malosi the menu and stepped around the bar to Julian’s office.

  “Any luck?” I heard Julian call out before I even reached his door.

  He was leaning over his desk, rifling through a stack of papers.

  “Yes and no.”

  “See the kitchen, yet?”

  I shook my head. “Listen, about tonight.”

  “You’re blowing it off.”

  He said it more as a prediction than a question.

  “Something’s come up.”

  Julian turned to face me. “That’s all right. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.”

  “Well, I mean…you don’t have to bail on Sullivan. I just―”

  “If I go to this God-awful thing, I’m going to get in a shit mood for a solid week.” He lowered his voice. “Cleve’s giving me a second chance, besides. He doesn’t need any more storm clouds.”

  I nodded. “Well, sweet. We’re both off the hook.”

  “Not really. Mrs. Sullivan is going have our asses publically flogged for this.”

  “I’m not worried about her.”

  Julian smiled. “Neither am I, to be honest.” He said it with a bit too much acid to be convincing.

  “One thing,” I added in a whisper, “don’t tell Reed I’m blowing this off.”

  “More secrets, Dorian?”

  I winced. “Yeah. That’s my life, right now.”

  “You should try the nachos,” he said, turning back to his paperwork.

  I followed Julian’s advice, and as I haunted my plate I switched mental gears. I was free of the Sullivan entanglement, but all that did was to kick Malosi back into play. He had taken the charge of my personal security to heart, as much out of professionalism as what I liked to think was a genuine desire to see me not floating in the Inner Harbor. I didn’t want to lie to him, but Brown’s words rolled over and over in my head.

  I was no fan of Brown, and I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t bother to spit on my face if my nose was on fire. But in a twisted sense of Netherworker rationale, his naked antagonism was oddly comforting. I knew where I stood with Brown, and in the past couple years I’d learned how far I could push him without getting my eyebrows hexed off.

  So, when he told me not to trust anyone, I felt inclined to give him more than a passing consideration. But who was he accusing, here? Adrastos? That made plenty of sense. Any multi-layered secret society housing that much power was bound to breed internal discontent, particularly toward the leadership. Wexler? As much as I found Brown’s acrimony to be bankable, I found Wexler’s tight-lipped smiles to be spine-chilling. She was a hard woman, deliberate and calculating. I ran back every word that crossed her lips for fear I’d missed a crucial double-meaning. She was exhausting.

  It was entirely possible I’d aligned myself with exactly the wrong side in this fight. Had Ches and Ricky distracted me to the point of blindness? Was I, in fact, the fool Brown saw me to be?

  “Not bad,” Malosi offered, bringing a plate around to the end of the bar.

  “So, Reed. I’m short a researcher.”

  He crossed his arms. “Uh huh?”

  “I need you to do a little book diving. Wrangle up e
verything you can find on Chaos magic. If we find these guys, we still have to deal with them.”

  His eyes dropped into squints.

  I continued, “You specialize in wardings and shields, right? That’s exactly the kind of thing we’re going to need if we’re going to square off against jinx-slingers. Something that will deflect chaos.”

  Malosi’s eyes lifted a touch, and bobbed up to the ceiling. He was thinking.

  Perfect.

  “I have a notion or two,” he muttered. “You plan on giving me access to that cabinet in your basement?”

  “Hell no.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Reed, I don’t let my closest friends rummage around in Emil’s books.”

  He smirked. “That’s good, since I’m not your close friend.”

  Malosi had a point, there. In the same way I “trusted” Brown because he had no investment in my well-being, I tended to trust Malosi. We had a very limited history from our affair with Osterhaus. We landed on the same end of that struggle, both with Osterhaus and with Carmen. He had proven himself to be a capable practitioner, at least in the specific arenas I’d seen him work within. And he had yet to let me down, even once.

  But I trusted no one with Emil’s books. No one. Even those with the best intentions become subverted by their dark allure. And Malosi was already operating in a gray area with Clement, a known Netherworker.

  Clement. Shit. He had a straight-up offer on the table for those books. What sense did it make to give his right-hand man access? It wasn’t like I could just pop in, find the “Tome of Chaos Magic and How to Stop It” from the cabinet and lock it back up again. Most of the texts I’d inherited from Emil were rambling discourses on various Netherworking principles and traditions, wandering from topic to topic without structure or coherence. The best an anal-retentive control freak like Emil could accomplish toward organization of the cabinet was that pitiful hand-scratched index clipboard hanging on the door.

  No, finding useful information in Emil’s Library would be a long-term project. And I didn’t trust Malosi enough to leave him alone with it while I dicked around with Brown in Ellicott City.

  “Sorry, Reed. Not happening.”

  “If you’re that damn worried about it, then you do it. They’re your books, and I’m not exactly the researching type.”