Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks)

by Sonnet O'Dell

  “May I ask you something else before I get to my point?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why answer me so honestly? Aren’t these trade secrets?” Sam laughed deeply and booming, making the satyr turn and look at us. He quickly looked away again when I caught his gaze.

  “There is something about you that elicits such confidences. You I feel, unlike so many of your kind, are not inclined to gossip and they are hardly damaging facts…”

  “Ah hell!” cried the Satyr behind us, interrupting. “What do I have to do to win at this game?”

  I caught this strange, maddening glint in his eye as Sam vanished from his seat only to reappear next to the game machine. The satyr spooked a little but didn’t run because Sam gave him a very easy, charm filled smile.

  “Perhaps I can help with that?”

  I ground my teeth. Damn it, no, he was not making deals on my time. I lit my index finger on fire, stoking the spell’s ashes so that it re-burned a little, and willed him back to me. Sam’s eyes shot up and glared at me, but he was instantly back, into his seat. The Satyr balked.

  “I’m sorry. That was impolite,” he apologized, straightening his cuffs. He tried brushing it off as nothing, but I saw the look. He leaped on that possibility, like a salesman who’d seen a sucker. A salesman that was desperate for that next sale. It was peculiar, to say the least. I slowly removed my finger from the ash, letting the flames absorb back into my flesh as if I was a flame in a humanoid jacket. Sam watched me do it with apparent fascination.

  “I believe,” he said drawing back upon our conversation, “that you were reaching your crescendo.” I wrapped my hands around my mug, keeping them warm from the heat radiating through the china.

  “There have been two recent murders. Each victim I believe killed by a sin. Gluttony and Vanity.” Sam’s eyes sparkled with interest.

  “Bee isn’t currently top side and you wish to know if I have used my sin to kill?” I nodded. That was exactly what I wanted. I assumed Bee was Beelzebub to whom the sin of Gluttony belonged. “No I have not. One does not exactly die of the sin itself. A moral vice cannot truly kill you, but an action undertaken whilst in its sway can. I have not been feeling myself lately.”

  I grinned down at the rim of my mug, hoping he could not see my amusement. I managed to quickly straighten my smile.

  “How so?”

  “Drained. Hungry. In need,” he said. I recalled how ravenously he had devoured the pork – a good source of protein. “As if someone has been drawing on me against my will. I wonder if my fellow has felt the same. I of course would feel it more slowly as I am currently out of my element and need every ounce of my strength.” I had to smile at Sam talking himself up to me, as if he needed to impress on me his power.

  “Could a wizard draw on you?” Sam had to consider it for a moment.

  “Yes and no,” he said, balancing his two palms out like scales. “Ordinarily I would say no. For an ordinary wizard even given the implication that he is bad, he could not draw upon my power without my permission. He could summon me but I could easily say no.”

  “And you haven’t been summoned?”

  “You are the first to dare in a very long time.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “That whoever this wizard is, they would have to have a deep knowledge of our plane and my people to draw from one of us, uninvited and undetected.” I felt my brow wrinkle.

  “If this person is drawing on you can’t you just, I don’t know, piggy back on his connection to find who he is?” Sam shook his head, which made even more of a mess of his hair.

  “Perhaps if he was still drawing on me, but I am only feeling the after effect of being drawn upon. He or she,” he said with a tip of the hat that my gender could be just as ruthless and devious as his, “must be very sharp. A quick, sharp pull, just enough to induce another and then the tie was cut.” I understood that. He was saying it was like in the movies or TV when the FBI tries to trace a phone call. They need the caller to stay on the line long enough to lock in on them. Sam leaned forward in his chair again. I could see the interest in his eyes, and also the flickering of rage. Thankfully it wasn’t rage at me.

  “I take it that this is the person you seek, not I?” I nodded my head and he gave me another toothsome smile. “And if it had been me what would you have done?” I brought the last of my latte up to my lips and tried to sound both confident and nonchalant at the same time. I wanted the line to be a throwaway.

  “Then you’d be having coffee with Lillith right now, not me.” Sam studied me and I held myself, careful not to give any sign that I doubted I could do it.

  “Pride goeth before the fall.”

  “You’d know all about that wouldn’t you.”

  “Indeed!” That was all he said. He didn’t laugh or look skeptical, and he didn’t call my bluff. He just sat having his own thoughts for a few minutes and I let him.

  “I know,” he said finally, resting his cheek against his palm and his elbow on the arm of the chair, “that you would not be one to make a deal with me.”

  “Damn straight!” Not that I was so virtuous, I’d taken a short cut or two before, but I was no fool.

  “But I wonder if I could perhaps ask a favor of you?”

  “You can ask,” I said putting down my cup, the unspoken half of my sentence being, ‘but I don’t have to do it’.

  “I do not like having been used in this way. I ask that when you find them that you merely let me know who they are. I cannot let this pass without word, sets a bad precedent.”

  Malevolence flashed in his eyes and I could see how, although he looked like an angel, he had earned the title demon.

  “I could do that.” Frankly, I didn’t think there was a snowballs chance in Balmoria that the police would convict the guy and make it stick. Why not let a demon have a crack at a murderer? I wondered if that made me a bad person. That I wished evil on those that did evil. Or was I just embracing an evolved sense of karma? Sam reached into his inner pocket, pulled out a business card and passed it to me, his fingers deliberately stroking along mine. There was a tiny jolt, an arc of power between us that made us both flinch back.

  “Very powerful indeed,” he muttered. I ignored his remark and looked at his business card. It read Sam Morningstar. Agent. Los Angeles.

  “Ah ha, I knew there had to be some demonic presence in LA.” Sam smiled.

  “My sin is vanity, my dear. Where else would you find that many shallow and vain people to prey upon?” I had to guess that having been prey to that sin himself, he knew exactly what to look for and how to use it against them. I turned the card over.

  “There’s no number.”

  “Indeed. It works much like your paper there,” he said, pointing at the ashtray. “Burn it and I shall come to you.” Sam smirked. “I would happily give you several so you may call me to your bed tonight.” I scoffed and put the card away in my pocket.

  “Dream on.”

  “I cannot entice you to have sex with me?”

  “You’d have to join the queue,” I said with a weary smile. Sam stood, took my hand and gave it a kiss. Not a short peck, a long lingering kiss. In fact, I half expected him to tongue my knuckles.

  “It has been a pleasure my dear, but I must get back to my life.” With that, he was gone. The only sign of his exit was a small wisp of grayish smoke dissipating in the air.

  Chapter Nine

  I stuck my head around the door into homicide and scanned the room. Butcher’s desk was blessedly empty and I could see that Hamilton was standing at the filing cabinets in his office. I flitted across the room at top speed, shut the door to the office behind me and braced my back against it. Hamilton slid a drawer shut, arching a brow at my abrupt entrance.

  “Hello Cassandra,” he said with a wry smile. “Do come in.” He leaned against the cabinet and crossed his arms over his masculine chest. “Who are you hiding from?”

  “Mainly Rourke, but your de
tective sergeant just made the list.”

  Hamilton gave an undignified snort, collected some papers and headed for his desk chair.

  “Rourke was placated by the half lie we told. She’s too busy with this series of ongoing audits to really waste time kicking a fuss, and Butcher is at his weekly psych appointment.” I let out the breath I’d been holding and relaxed a little.

  “Good because the man does not like me,” I said, pushing away from the door and taking the visitors chair with slightly more padding to it.

  “He doesn’t know you, so he doesn’t trust you. I’m sure it has very little to do with you as a person.” I crossed my legs over to sit Indian style in the chair.

  “But you trust me? And is your word not good enough?” Hamilton smirked.

  “I’m afraid he has a very poor opinion of me when it comes to women. He thinks you can bat your pretty little eyes at me and get me to do whatever you want.”

  I made a mock pouty face.

  “You telling me I can’t.” Hamilton laughed a full throated chuckled that filled the small room as he shook his head.

  “I think it’s best if we don’t explore that territory. So what can I do for you?”

  “Actually, I came here to do something for you, give you an update. My girl for research got back to me and I followed a lead.”

  Hamilton made gesture inviting me to get on with it. Damn, people were impatient recently.

  “Well, you know we discussed that each sin is connected with an animal and a color. They also all happen to be associated with a demon, a prince of Balmoria.”

  “Uh huh. So we’ve got some demon princes out on some crazy demonic road trip?” I shook my head.

  “The one I talked to said not.” Hamilton’s eyes bugged out and he gripped the desk a little too firmly.

  “You talked to a demon? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Let alone a demon you suspect of murder!” I arched a brow at him.

  “You know a lot about demons do you?”

  Hamilton read the suspicion on my face because he pulled back in on himself, effectively ‘shoving the cat back into the bag’ and locking it up in the safe. He’d over played his hand when I didn’t even realize this was a card game.

  “Only what my Sunday school teacher told me, but she put a heavy emphasis on the bad.” Not for the first time, I didn’t believe Hamilton. He hadn’t attended a day of Sunday school in his life.

  “It was, FYI, actually a very polite and informative conversation – till he asked me to have sex with him, but even that was well mannered.”

  “I hope you said no.” I glared at him. Hamilton was not my father or my boyfriend. He had no right to question me like that. I crossed my arms, grumpy and defensive.

  “Of course I did!” Hamilton read my change of mood and tried to recover himself.

  “It’s just, y’know what they say about young witches loving to experiment.” I cooled off a little because I had actually heard something like that before from Lillith. The previously mentioned succubus, who was my number one fan, had told me that people who reeked of magic the way I did tended to do anything with a pulse. Slutty behavior was not my forte, unless really drunk and mad as hell at my boyfriend. That had required some serious damage control.

  “But on the basis of what he told me, I don’t think he is personally responsible. Someone tapped his power and used it to induce our victims into an action that would kill them. He explained that the sin itself can’t really kill you.”

  “But make a man gluttonous and give him an unending feast,” said Hamilton finishing my thought. He didn’t look happy. “That’s going to be a bitch to pin on someone Cassandra.”

  “Before we think about that do you even have a suspect?”

  “Not a suspect per say, but maybe someone who wanted Cora and Callaghan dead.” I nodded and gave him the same ‘come on’ gesture he gave me before.

  “I showed you mine. Now you show me yours.” Smirking, Hamilton rose to his feet and with his hands on his belt, walked around the desk as I gulped.

  “Butcher had the file. He was calling down a list of Cora’s friends, trying to find out more about her.” I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly while Hamilton left the office. For a minute, I thought our teasing banter had gone too far. He returned with a file and Butcher’s notes from his phone calls. He shut the door again and handed me a piece of paper from the file. I dutifully scanned it. It was Callaghan’s recent client list. One of the most recent was the second victim, Cora Solomon.

  “Callaghan was her lawyer?”

  “Yes and he was handling her divorce. According to Butcher’s notes, the divorce was messy. Her husband wasn’t going to give her a penny if he could help it, but she was, and I’m quoting one of the friends here, ‘going to take the rat bastard for every last cent’.” I winced at how venomous the words sounded. How could you love someone enough to marry them but end up hating them so much?

  “How was her case? I mean what were her chances?” Hamilton leaned against his desk, thumbing his way through the file.

  “Callaghan’s notes on the case indicated they were very good. Besides the fact that he was one of the best divorce lawyers in the country, she had iron-clad proof that he’d committed numerous acts of infidelity. In fact, she claims when they were first married he had a sex slave that he kept in the basement.” I cocked an eyebrow.

  “Do you think she was seriously saying sex slave or was it bondage?” Hamilton shrugged his shoulder and flicked to another page.

  “Callaghan had us go in to investigate the claim,” said Hamilton, meaning cops, not him and his crew specifically. “They didn’t find such a woman or any traces of any other than her. Especially as the man lives in a lavish penthouse that has no basement.” I leaned forward to give him back the piece of paper and asked.

  “So who is this guy she’s married to? Was married to?”

  “Philonius T Solomon. He’s some well to do stock broker, money up the ying yang. He tried hiring Callaghan out from under his wife but he wasn’t swayable. He’d already said he would help Cora and that promise appears to have been more important than money.”

  I rested my face in my hands and my elbows on my knees, thinking. It was certainly enough of a motive for murder, but why kill her lawyer too? Why kill him first? I wondered what kind of man this Philonius T Solomon was.

  “The divorce proceeding even made the papers.” Hamilton dangled a newspaper clipping in front of my face. I stared at the grainy black and white image and snatched it, studying it more carefully. “After the search turned up nothing she apparently screamed at him in court that he had to have murdered her and that we’d find her body if we just looked hard enough.”

  “Is there any way to get a better picture of this guy?” Hamilton nodded, rounding his desk to his computer.

  “He’s a fairly public figure. I should be able to Google up a better photo.” I rounded the desk and stood behind him, watching as he brought up the search engine and typed in the name. “That’s him,” he said clicking an image so it was larger. Philonius T Solomon was a barrel of a man, short and stout with very swine-like facial features. He wore a suite reminiscent of Al Capone. A cigar was perched on his thick lips because his fingers, swollen to a reddish hue and decorated with numerous gold rings, couldn’t grip it. Even Hamilton recoiled.

  “Well she didn’t marry him for his looks,” he said, lifting up a picture of her. “That leaves sex or money.”

  “Let’s go with money because I can’t imagine the sex without throwing up in my mouth a little bit,” I said as my stomach churned. “But I’ve seen him before.”

  “Where?”

  “Most recently at the shindig the vamps held to get that bill passed, but I first met him in the Soul Market. I think we could believe he would have a sex slave, and I can just as easily believe that when he got legitimately married, he disposed of her.”

  “Oh?” he said curiously. That one word was a very
loaded question.

  “The man tried to buy me. My ex, Magnus, looks a lot more like his dark court father than his human mother. He thought he was there to sell me. I suppose the cut-off jeans didn’t help.” After the incident of the corset and the cutoffs, I bundled my old Halloween costumes and took them to a charity drop off. I never dressed as Daisy Duke or a vampire again.

  “There is nothing to suggest he’s anything other than D grade human though.”

  I called to my mind the last time I encountered him and realized why Cora seemed familiar. She had been his date, the woman in the barely there dress that was all red spangles. I also recalled the third member of their party, a man who’d given me the absolute creeps. I got some kind of ‘other than plain human’ vibe off him.

  “He had a bodyguard, a man who when I met him, screamed ‘bad to the bone’. Think he could have a duel role as a magical assassin?”

  “It could be possible. Anyway, Solomon and his bodyguard are persons of interest. We should go talk to him. Speaking of creepy guys, anything more from your stalker?”

  “Not since the key, but I can’t work out how he’s involved in this. Guess the best way would be just to ask Solomon what he knows.” I gave Hamilton a wide grin.

  “We’ll need a phonebook and a hose, right?”

  Chapter Ten

  Philonius T. Solomon lived in an impressive penthouse condo down by the river front close to the lock. Hamilton buzzed the bell and some manservant answered. We were allowed into the building and got into the elevator. It wasn’t a long ride up as it was only an eight-story building, but gave Hamilton and me a little time to talk.

  “Do you want to be bad cop or can I?” Hamilton fought a smile and turned to me.