The Devil Is a Gentleman

by J. L. Murray

  “Really?” she said. “So you weren’t involved in an altercation in your father’s old warehouse?”

  I fluttered my eyelashes. “What sort of altercation?” I said.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Gage muttered.

  “You might want to work on your innocent look, Miss Slobodian,” said Eliza. “No matter. It’s done. I took care of it. As far as anyone knows, including your friend, Ron Smithy, the men shot each other.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why would you do that?” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  “That’s a good question,” said Gage. “Why would a police commissioner cover up a crime? Especially for a known Abby. Don’t make sense. You wearing a wire or something?”

  “Really, Mr. Gage,” she said. “You watch too much television. I don’t operate that way.”

  “How do you operate?” I said. “You’ve threatened to kill me. Your predecessor had my father arrested, had me put on trial and slapped onto the Registry, and then tried to have me re-arrested multiple times. Excuse me if I’m suspicious. Why do you think it was me, anyway?”

  “Please,” she said. “You’re like a bull in a china shop. You bled all over the scene, sprayed a couple of thugs with bullets, I could smell you there. And forensics would eventually out you. I did you a favor. I also thought you might want this.” She held something out to me. It was my Makarov, the gun that the police had taken after I shot Bradley in my apartment.

  I took the gun from her hand and looked at it, checked the clip. It was the only gun I’d ever held that felt like it was a part of me. I pocketed it.

  Her dark eyes darted from me to Gage and back again. “I think you can help me,” she said. It looked like it pained her to say it. She looked at the ceiling, then took another step toward me. She was taller than me, almost as tall as Gage. “I need your help,” she said, her voice softer. I saw a movement in her eyes and realized they were shifting, just like Sam’s. It was disconcerting.

  “Do you know what happened to Frank Bradley?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you care?” she said.

  “I met his wife,” I said. “They have a daughter. I think she’s got a right to know why.”

  She looked down at the floor and gestured to the burnmarks. “You can see what happened to him,” she said.

  “What, he burned up?” said Gage.

  “Obviously,” said Eliza. “He was a good man. Deep down.”

  “You knew him?” I said.

  She nodded. “Frank Bradley was working for me,” she said. “And that’s why he died.”

  Gage was watching her with interest, a frown creasing his brow. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but it would have to wait.

  Eliza sat down on the bedframe, avoiding the charred patch. Gage leaned against the wall and I sat on the small, wobbly countertop, my boots dangling. “Okay. Let’s hear it,” I said.

  She looked affronted, and flashed a look of anger at me, but it passed in an instant and she looked at her hands.

  “I came here, as I said, to find an angel,” Eliza said.

  “Why?” I said. “Sam said you were The Creed where you come from. Seems like an important job. You could have sent somebody else to find the angel.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen a couple angels over the years,” said Gage. “What was it about this angel that got you to leave an important job and show up in this town?”

  “I’d rather not say,” she said quietly.

  “You want our help?” I said.

  She pursed her lips. “He was special to me,” she said. “I won’t say why.”

  “I think we can guess,” said Gage.

  “Daniel committed petty crimes,” she continued, ignoring Gage. “Not terrible crimes, just black market stuff, smuggling, things like that. It was enough to embarrass me. Many knew of our involvement, and Daniel used this to secure illegal items. Weapons, mostly. I was furious. I was so angry with him.”

  “Hell hath no fury,” said Gage.

  “I wanted to teach him a lesson,” she said. “I sent him here. Banished him from his home. It was only ten years, but I thought he would appreciate it when all was said and done.”

  “You sent him away for ten years and expected him to appreciate it?” I said.

  “Ten years is the blink of an eye for my kind,” she said. “It means nothing. Like a month in your jails. I thought his time in this world would make him appreciate our world more. He would be good if he saw how your people lived.”

  “Thanks for that,” said Gage.

  “Then what?” I said.

  “The decade passed and he did not return. Two more years passed and he was not back. I came looking for him. I learned he had been working with Nazar Polzin. The more I learned about Mr. Polzin, the more I became convinced that I had made an error in sending Daniel here. I felt responsible for whatever had happened to him. When I found out about The Blood, I just knew I could find Daniel through them.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Eliza shrugged stiffly. “They were obsessed with angelwine. I knew they had their eyes on all the shunned.”

  “Shunned?”

  “The banished ones,” she said. “The ones sent to your world as punishment.”

  “You really need a better correctional system,” I said.

  “How’d you find out about The Blood?” said Gage. “They’re supposed to be secret, ain’t they? Disappear everyone who knows about them.”

  Eliza closed her eyes and frowned. “I’ve done many things in the past few years I’m not proud of,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked at Gage. “One of them was befriending a man that worked for Mr. Polzin.”

  “Uncle Naz?” said Gage.

  “One of his men,” she said. “He was a horrible man, and cruel. It did not end well. But he liked to talk afterwards.”

  “You slept with the guy to get intel,” I said. “Got it. No need to be all dramatic.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, but continued. “He told me about The Blood - as he understood it, anyway - about the men that hired them. He mentioned them by name. It was a small thing to find the newest recruit.”

  “Frank Bradley,” I said.

  “He was easy enough to convince when I told him what I was,” she said. “He had a certain fascination for my kind. We used to meet here and he would bring me information. The problem was, The Blood didn’t trust him. He asked too many questions. But he managed to make a few friends over time.” She looked toward the window. “He did get carried away with the whole thing, though. He even hired an investigator to follow him around to document all of the people that were involved.”

  “We saw the pictures,” said Gage. “Mighty powerful friends he was making.”

  “Yes,” said Eliza. “Dorrance is making quite an impression lately, isn’t he? From bank CEO to Congress overnight. And this business about the picketers. If this were my world I would take him down.”

  “Picketers?” I said. “The ones outside of City Hall?”

  “You haven’t heard?” she said. “It’s all over the news. Dorrance made protesting a felony crime. Seven were killed this morning. Their blood is all over my office building.”

  I looked at Gage, who looked as troubled as I felt. It seemed under Dorrance, life was going to be even more unpleasant than it had been under Bradley. First the Registry, and now this. I wondered what was next.

  “Skip to the end, lady,” Gage said to Eliza. “We want to get out of here before it’s illegal to breathe.”

  Eliza glared at him. “Frank found out The Blood was taking angelwine. They had some sort of initiation for him after his first year. A secret ceremony. He was blindfolded and they brought him somewhere, he didn’t know where. A basement. They took off the blindfold and they made him say some words in Latin. He didn’t know what they meant. Then they placed something in his mouth from a dropper. It burned his insides for days, he said, but made him feel like he could do anything
. He was faster, stronger, smarter. I knew it was angelwine. More than that, I knew it was blood from my Daniel.”

  “How did you know it was his?” I said. “There must be more than one angel roaming around.”

  “Daniel was a Wielder,” she said. “He had fire in his veins, his blood. He could control flame, and could even produce it out of thin air. I knew the blood was his because angel blood usually doesn’t burn. His would.”

  “Maybe Daniel is doing it on his own,” said Gage. “Maybe he’s selling his blood. Would make sense, wouldn’t it? Given his history.”

  “I want to find him no matter what,” said Eliza, stiffening slightly. “I’ve changed since I sent him away. I only want to find him and make sure he’s okay. To tell him I’m sorry. I met with Bradley about a week before he came to you. He was buzzing because someone had told him about the Morrigan.”

  “The Morrigan?” Gage said, perking up. “What about it?”

  “Not it, ” said Eliza. “She. A little girl, Frank said. I didn’t believe it, of course. How could a little girl be guiding The Blood? They hold all the strings in this city. Control everything like it’s a show. But Frank was adamant. He thought if he found the Morrigan, he would find the angel. Looking back, I think he was still taking the angelwine. His wife had asked for a divorce. He wasn’t right in the head. But I didn’t think about that then. I only heard that he might find Daniel. I let him go. Not that I could have stopped him.

  “He disappeared for three days,” she said. “I called him, called his office, I couldn’t contact him. I came here, thinking he might be waiting for me. He wasn’t here, but he had left something for me. Just there, under the floorboards. It’s our message system. We leave messages for each other there when we can’t meet.”

  Gage nudged the loose floorboard with the toe of his shoe. “Pretty technologically advanced for an angel and her undercover spy,” he said.

  “Mock all you want, Mr. Gage, but it worked.” Eliza reached into her jacket pocket. Her hand lingered there for a minute and she studied my face. Seeming to make a decision, she pulled her hand out. She held a vial, a bit longer than her fist, and a finger-width around. It held a substance the color of gold champagne. It bubbled like champagne, too, but was as thick and viscous as melted chocolate. But what made Gage and I stare in open-mouthed fascination was the fact that it was glowing softly, casting its light on Eliza’s face, reflecting off her dark eyes.

  “Is that what I think it is?” said Gage. He swallowed.

  “Angelwine,” said Eliza. “Otherwise known as the blood of an angel. My angel.”

  I hopped down from the counter and approached her to get a better look. This was the real deal. The liquid was actually emitting light. It looked like sunlight, if sunlight could be bottled. “Where did he get it?” I said. “Did he find Daniel?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “You were the last one to see him alive.”

  I tried to remember everything Bradley had said to me. “The Morrigan,” I said. “He said he found her.”

  “And?” said Eliza.

  “He said he couldn’t help her,” I said. “He kept babbling about an angel, but I thought he was just crazy at the time. He didn’t mention a place.”

  “And you didn’t ask,” said Eliza.

  “Don’t go blaming her,” said Gage. “As you may remember, Bradley was trying to kill Niki at the time.”

  “That’s another thing,” said Eliza. “I don’t know how Frank got this vial, but I don’t think it went unnoticed.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “The way you described him,” she said. “How he couldn’t control himself. He’d been taking angelwine for a while. And the way he died — at least the way I assume he died — he must have overdosed. He would have known better, though. I warned him. I think The Blood forced him to drink too much. The fire just ate through his body until he couldn’t take any more.”

  “Poof,” said Gage.

  Eliza looked at him. “Indeed.”

  “Well, whether it was done on purpose or by accident,” I said, “the man is dead. And someone knew about this place and came to clean it up.”

  “I suppose this cabin wasn’t as safe as I thought,” said Eliza.

  “Why are you telling us all of this?” I said.

  “Because you are going to find Daniel for me,” she said.

  “What makes you think I would do that?” I said.

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll stumble across the evidence in the deaths of three young men. That evidence that will prove that they didn’t kill each other after all.”

  “And if I tell them what you did?” I said, knowing the answer.

  “They won’t believe you,” she said. “I’m the police commissioner and you’re the Abby daughter of an Abby gangster. This time there won’t even be a trial.”

  “Angel knows how to blackmail,” said Gage. “What’s keeping me from blowing this whole thing wide open, then?” he said. “You going to blackmail me, too?”

  “No, I’m going to bribe you,” she said. “How would you like those committal papers to disappear? No record it ever happened. Deal?”

  Gage hesitated. He looked at me. I nodded. “Whatever,” he said. “But if we get killed I’m going to haunt the shit out of you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Fine. We’ll look for Daniel. Where do you suggest we start?”

  “Take this vial. Find him. I don’t care how. Use magic. Use…whatever it is you do. Find him.”

  I reached out my hand to take the vial. Eliza shrank back for a moment, holding the glowing container to her chest. She looked at it, frowning, then slowly held it out to me. I took it from her fingers and nearly dropped it.

  “It’s hot,” I said in surprise.

  “Of course it’s hot,” Eliza said. “I told you what he was. Plus, he’s an angel. I’m sure you’ve noticed Sam gives off heat.”

  I studied her, trying to decide if she was mocking me. She stared back at me, expressionless. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s all settled then,” she said, standing up and brushing herself off. “I’ll be off. Keep me posted. Be careful.” She headed for the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “How’d you get here? I didn’t see another car.”

  “I get around,” she said. And with a joyless smile she was out the door.

  “What do you think?” I said to Gage. “Think she’s setting us up?”

  “Could be,” said Gage. “But what choice do you have?”

  “You have a choice,” I said. “You could walk away. Wouldn’t fault you for it.”

  “Those records been following me around a long time. ‘Sides, sounds like fun. Bad guys, angels, the Morrigan. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Where do we start?” I said. I looked at the vial in my hand. I could feel the light on my own face now. It felt warm and tingly.

  “My house for casting books,” said Gage. “I’ll do a location spell.”

  “Peachy,” I said.

  Chapter 9

  Eliza was nowhere to be seen when we left the cabin. I listened for the sound of a car motor, or a moped she could have hidden in the trees. Nothing.

  “Angels,” muttered Gage.

  I caught a movement in the trees out of the corner of my eye. A man was watching me from the edge of the wood. I squinted at him, and it took me more than a moment to realize he was a ghost. He walked toward me, his footsteps not quite seeming to meet the earth. He wasn’t floating, he just wasn’t connected to the world. As he got closer I recognized him.

  “Frank Bradley,” I said. He nodded. Gage looked back at me when I said the name.

  “He’s here?” he said.

  “Right in front of me,” I said.

  “Ask him where the angel is,” he said.

  “I remember you,” said Bradley. “Detective.”

  “You tried to kill me,” I said.

  “Sorry about that,” he said
. “I don’t remember. I wasn’t myself those last few days.”

  “Was it the angelwine?” I said. “Is that what killed you?”

  He nodded. “I should never have gotten involved with all this. It cost me. My life, my family. Everything. You stayed with me, though, it looks like. Even after I attacked you.”

  “You told me a lot, too,” I said. “And I felt responsible for shooting you.”

  “You shot me?” he said. He cracked a sad smile. “I remember that now. Good girl.”

  “I met your wife,” I said.

  “How is she?” he said.

  “Sad,” I said. “And confused. She loved you, you know.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “Eliza was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if you should trust her,” he said. “She may be yanking all our chains, far as I know.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said.

  “Blackmail?” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “We all have our secrets.”

  “What was yours, Frank?” I said. “Who killed you?”

  He shrugged, the motion seeming slightly airy. “I found the angelwine,” he said. He frowned. “I can’t remember where. A safe somewhere. A building.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I’m losing it,” he said. “Little by little, all my memories. When will this end? Can’t I just get sent wherever I’m going? Even Hell would be better than this. Every day I lose more and more.”

  “Wish I could help you,” I said. “It’s happening everywhere.”

  “It’s no way to live.”

  “Technically, you’re not living,” I said.

  He nodded. “Right. Well, I probably deserve it, at any rate.”

  “So. You found the angelwine in a building?” I said.

  “In the city,” he said. “Dorrance had a camera set up. He wanted to meet with me. Then two men held me while he poured that shit down my throat. I thought I’d die right there. But it took longer than that.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t help you,” I said.

  “I know now that by the time I saw you I was already dead.” His eyes, hollow and sad, turned to me. “Or I might as well have been. You shot a corpse. I don’t know why the little girl told me to find you.”