Dirty Magic

by Jaye Wells

  “I—” She looked so excited about the prospect of helping me end my romantic dry spell that I couldn’t hurt her feelings. I sighed and accepted the jar she pressed in my hands. “Thanks, Baba.”

  She beamed, showing off her slightly crooked front tooth and the gold crown that adorned her left incisor. “My pleasure, doll. Just remember to heat it up first. It also wouldn’t hurt to mix in a little nip of bourbon. If you don’t have any”—she reached into the collar of her housecoat and removed a flask from inside, presumably from her bra—“you can borrow some of mine.”

  I definitely drew the line at drinking another woman’s bra hooch. “That’s all right.” I held up a hand and tried to look grateful. “I’m sure I can manage.”

  She nodded decisively, like her work here was done. “On that note, I gotta go get ready for bingo at the senior center. If I don’t get there early enough that bitch Harriet Krauss steals all the good dotters.”

  I nodded as if this were a problem I often dealt with myself. “Good luck, Baba. And thanks for the tea.”

  She winked saucily and said, “You can thank me after some hot stud gives you a ride on his spitting kielbasa.”

  After that gem, I quickly extracted myself to go enjoy some quality time with junkie snitches, who were much less disturbing to be around than horny septuagenarians.

  Chapter Four

  A lot of people believe police work is all shoot-outs and high-speed chases. Truth is most of our hours are filled with paperwork or sitting on our asses in shitty city-issued cars waiting for something suspicious to investigate. That day, however, I was in my own shitty Jeep, since Eldritch’s suspension meant I wasn’t officially on duty.

  However, if Gardner let me on the task force, I wanted to arm myself with as much information as I could find about this new potion. That’s where the third part of police work came in—working informants.

  As usual, I found Mary in the park near the empty playground that was originally built for the kids of factory workers at Babylon Steel. The area used to have green grass and bushy trees and lots of colorful monkey bars and swing sets. Back then, America was still the capital of the steel empire begun by Carnegie and his cronies. But starting in the 1960s, the steel manufacturers’ hubris caught up to them when some Chinese alchemists revolutionized steel processes and took advantage of the deregulation of foreign imports. It wasn’t long before the steel industry here collapsed completely and ushered in a more dubious threat to the fabric of America: the magic industry.

  Sure, magic had existed throughout our history books, but mostly it had been framed as the superstitions of less educated societies. However, after an alchemist changed the economy of America, modern scholars and scientists took the old wives’ tales and studied them for the first time using scientific methods. Turned out all the witches who were burned in the Middle Ages hadn’t been just the innocent victims of the Catholic Church’s war on women. Sure, magic had always existed, it’s just no one really understood how it worked. That was until a scientist named Ezra Green discovered the genetic marker for magic was tied to left-handedness.

  Now, five decades later, everyone and their mothers used “clean” magic to wash their clothes and add zip to their sex lives. Instead of steel and iron funding America’s power, magic was the currency that kept us going. But the damage to Babylon and the rest of the Rust Belt towns couldn’t be undone. Especially since the illegal dirty magic industry had set down its black roots in our soil.

  The park I stood in had once been a symbol of Babylon’s bright future, but now it was nothing more than a barren scrub lot filled with bent, rusted sculptures exploring the theme of urban decay.

  I continued to make my way toward Mary. Her back was to me, but the alto of her lullaby floated to me on the breeze. Her hunched shoulders curved protectively around the burden strapped to her flat chest.

  I hesitated, worried I might be interrupting nap time. Little Man was always so grumpy when he hadn’t had his morning rest.

  My footsteps on the gravel path gave me away and she turned, ready to defend her precious burden. Mary’s misshapen head reminded me of old-timey illustrations of Humpty Dumpty, except covered with random tufts of long brunette hair. Despite the deceptively large cranium, her brain had the mental capacity of a toddler.

  Speaking of toddlers, the baby carrier strapped to her chest was custom-made and filled with alternating bands of salt slabs and body armor. From his perch on Mary’s chest, Little Man watched my approach through drooping lids. A blue knit cap perched on top of his small bald head. His tiny mouth opened into a yawn before he spoke.

  “The fuck you want, Prospero?”

  I looked into the homunculus’s eyes and said, “How’s it hangin’, LM?”

  His mouth twisted into a jaded grin too mature for his chubby-cheeked profile. “Low and to the left, as usual. Wanna see?” His chubby hand made for the waistband of his diaper.

  To the passerby, the pair probably looked like a hulk of a woman with questionable personal hygiene carrying a creepy baby doll. Instead, Little Man and Mary were actually conjoined twins. Their mutations were the result of their mother’s addiction to fertility elixirs. Unfortunately, she hadn’t survived pushing out the twenty-pound baby Mary.

  On the other hand, Little Man started as what appeared to be a mole on his sister’s chest, but eventually he grew into the homunculus she carried everywhere. Any advantage Mary had over Little Man in size was mitigated by the fact that he got all the brains.

  I grimaced and shook my head. “Got a few questions for you.”

  “Come back later.” His infant-sized lips pursed into a pouty moue. “It’s almost time for sleepies.”

  I pulled my wallet from my pocket. His eyes widened. That kind of money could buy a large pack of diapers or some special time with a discount whore.

  “In that case, let’s retire to my office.” He motioned his tiny fist at Mary.

  She pivoted her large body like an ocean liner executing a wide turn and lumbered toward a nearby bench. Even sitting, the giantess loomed over me, which meant Little’s face was even with mine.

  “I assume you’re here about that junkie you smoked?” he snapped.

  I nodded.

  “Rough business,” LM said, his high-pitched voice a facsimile of sympathy. “Word is you shot his dick off. That true?”

  “Thought you knew better than to listen to rumors.”

  LM shrugged. “Every rumor holds a grain of truth.”

  “The challenge is finding that one little grain in the pile of bullshit,” I said. “Anything you can tell me about a new potion making the rounds?”

  He wrinkled the bald skin where his eyebrows would have been if he’d had any hair. “Like you said, I know better than to listen to rumors.”

  I raised the bills and rubbed them together. “Tell me anyway—just for shits and giggles.”

  Little raised a hand to indicate Mary should lean closer to me. I paused and then played along, leaning close enough to smell Mary’s body odor and the diaper cream on LM’s ass. “People been talking about a unique new package.”

  I kept my expression poker blank. “Who’s putting this package out?”

  He shook his head. “No one’s naming any names. Either way, that new shit? The Wolf? Nasty.”

  The wound on my arm throbbed. “Tell me about it.”

  “Hear it makes the user crave human flesh.” Little Man ran a speculative glance over my blackened eye and the bandage peeking from under my shirtsleeve. “You know anything about that?”

  “Maybe,” I evaded and changed tactics. “Back up a sec. You expect me to believe you don’t have a theory about who’s cooking this potion?” I looked in his heavily lashed blue eyes. “Stinks like shit, LM.”

  The laugh that came from his mouth was a bizarre, squeaky cackle. “That’s why I like you, Prospero. You understand that 80 percent of the Cauldron is illusion.”

  “So what’s the real story?”r />
  “Honestly? If it’s a new wiz, he’s got titanium balls. Unless…”

  “Yeah?”

  “The potion’s not from a new source at all.”

  “Preliminary tests say it’s alchemical.”

  “Heard that myself.” He shrugged. “Could be a low-level cooker looking to make a name.”

  “Any of the old Votary boys making noises about stepping into Abe’s shoes?”

  “No one wants to die that bad, Prospero.” He laughed.

  Steel bars didn’t prevent Uncle Abe from playing puppet master on the streets. None of his loyal guys would dare step up to usurp his power. Which meant whoever was putting this new potion out either had Abe’s blessing or was someone who wasn’t loyal.

  “But,” LM continued, “if I were a betting man, I’d say the lead contender would be your old friend Volos.”

  My stomach dipped. “Just because Volos testified against Uncle Abe doesn’t mean he wants to take over the coven.” John Volos had been the prosecution’s lead witness against Uncle Abe in exchange for a generous immunity deal. Since that trial, Volos appeared to have turned his life around. He’d started several companies and was a generous contributor to charities and the election campaigns of a few powerful politicians at the state and local levels.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to take over the coven,” LM said, his face going all soft-focus as if he was imagining a distant possibility. “Maybe he wants to start one of his own.”

  I frowned. “Why would he want to risk all that legit power to start peddling dirty potions again?”

  A voice in my head whispered, Because he missed cooking. Just like you.

  I shook off the wayward thought. “It just doesn’t add up.”

  “You asked for theories, right?” LM pursed his lips. “What if Volos has just been biding his time? He’s started all these revitalization projects, right? Like the one near the Arteries?”

  He was talking about the new community center Volos was building on the abandoned lot where I’d killed Ferris Harkins.

  LM continued, “What if he’s doing all these projects to gain back territory from the other covens? The one by the Arteries is on Bane’s turf. Then there’s the one he’s starting next year in Aphrodite’s sector.” Bane was the leader of the Sanguinarian Coven, which specialized in blood magic. Aphrodite Johnson was the priestess and coven leader of the Mystical Coven of the Sacred Orgasm, aka the Os.

  “Okay, so he’s building community projects on other covens’ turf,” I said. “Maybe it’s a simple ‘fuck you’ to the other covens.”

  “But why? I mean, if he’s gone legit why bother the covens anyway? Volos has too much power to be threatened by Aphrodite or Bane enough to flip them the double birds.”

  I sat back and mulled it over. I’d never fully trusted Volos’s supposed evolution, but it was hard to believe he’d put a potion as dangerous as Gray Wolf on the streets. “Why would he choose this potion?” I said almost to myself. “What’s his angle?”

  “Jeez, what? You expect me to do all your work?”

  I pressed my lips together and shot him a look. If he was right and Volos was behind this potion, this case was about to become a major shit show. I blew out a long breath. “Christ. What a mess.”

  “You ask me, things been fucked up round here ever since your uncle got sent to Crowley. Say what you will about the man, but he kept shit in line.”

  I couldn’t share LM’s nostalgia for the good old days when Uncle Abe ruled the Cauldron like an unenlightened despot, but he was right about things being in upheaval since Abe left. Nature abhors a vacuum, and Abe’s exit left a huge one in Babylon.

  LM nudged me with his elbow, breaking me out of my troubling thoughts. “I heard something else.”

  I raised a brow and waited. He cleared his throat and rubbed his fingertips together. “Jesus, LM. You’re bleeding me dry today.” Normally I’d file an expense report to be reimbursed for paying off CIs, but in this case I was pretty sure Eldritch would laugh me out of the precinct since I intended to use this information on a MEA case. And I was pretty sure Gardner wouldn’t open the coffers for an unauthorized meeting with a CI if I got on the team. Which meant whatever LM was about to tell me better be worth my having to skip lunch that day.

  I pulled a five and two ones from the wallet. He shot me a withering look as if I’d insulted him. “It’s all I got. But if your tip’s good, I’ll make sure and visit you next time I have a full wallet and a need for info.”

  He sniffed and sighed like he was doing me a favor. “All right, so one of my boys says if you wanna get a piece of the new package, you gotta go through this guy at the Green Faerie.”

  “The absinthe bar on Exposition?” I frowned. “Who’s the connect?”

  Little Man shook his head. “Not sure. I guess there’s some password or some shit. You know how the wizes are with new customers. Gotta sniff ’em out first, make sure no Arcs”—the slang for Arcane officers—“are poking around.”

  “What’s the password?”

  “Beats me.” LM shrugged. “But you hang around long enough I bet you’ll see something interesting.”

  “Well, it’s a place to start, I guess.” If we could catch the dealer maybe he could be flipped into admitting his source. That was a big if, though, given we had no idea who the dealer was. It was an even bigger if regarding whether there would even be a “we” since I still hadn’t heard from Gardner.

  My lack of optimism must have telegraphed through my posture because Mary raised a ham-steak paw and awkwardly patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, lady.”

  I forced a smile at her. “Thanks, Mary.” With a sigh, I rose.

  “Ahem,” Little Man said. “There’s the small matter of our fee.”

  I handed the wad of bills to him. He stuck them in his diaper. Before I could continue, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Normally I wouldn’t have taken a call during a meeting with an informant, but I was still waiting for word from Gardner.

  “Prospero,” I said, trying to sound capable and trustworthy.

  “It’s Gardner.”

  “Hi—”

  “You’re in,” she barreled ahead. My stomach dipped with excitement, but I kept my features bland for LM’s benefit. “Nine a.m. sharp tomorrow.” She rattled off an address on Stark Street.

  “Thank you so—”

  “And Prospero?”

  “I—Yeah?”

  “Don’t make me regret this.”

  I cleared the bubble of emotion that unexpectedly formed in my throat. “I won’t.”

  “Good. Oh, and you’re in the MEA now. Try to dress the part.”

  My hand went to the frayed collar of the T-shirt I’d thrown on to go meet LM. No doubt she was thinking about the scrubs I’d worn the night before. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “‘Sir,’ Prospero,” she snapped. “Call me ‘sir.’”

  With that the line disconnected. I sat looking down at the phone for a minute, unsure whether to do a victory dance or crap my pants. For a woman offering me good news, she sure didn’t sound too happy.

  “Ahem.” LM stared at me expectantly.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. He looked curious about the call, but I wasn’t ready to show that particular hand to him yet. I needed to change the subject and fast.

  “So what are you gonna do?” LM asked.

  “What do you mean?” I frowned at the homunculus’s impish smile.

  LM shrugged and leaned back on his elbow against Mary’s chest. “Way I remember it, you and Volos used to be sweet on each other.”

  I sighed. “Right. Used to be. That was a long time ago, LM. Besides, I’m not convinced he’s involved. He’s got too much to lose to go back to cooking.”

  “Still,” LM said slowly, “you know what they say, right?”

  I raised a brow and waited.

  “The wizard can leave the magic, but the magic never leaves him.” He winked at me. “Ain’t that right, Prospero?”


  The insinuation made me want to tell the homunculus to go fuck himself, but I knew better than to react. Betraying any defensiveness about my own relationship—or lack thereof—to dirty magic would be ammunition in his little hands. Especially if any of the lowlifes I was trying to arrest were more generous tippers than I was.

  “Thanks for the help.” I tipped my chin.

  LM nodded back, but a speculative gleam in his eye told me that brain of his was already strategizing the best way to use our conversation to his advantage.

  “See you around, Mary.”

  The giantess smiled, revealing an abundance of sickly white gums and a handful of crooked, decaying teeth. “Be careful, lady.”

  I smiled and turned away. There was no use telling her that if I’d been the careful sort, I would have moved the hell out of Babylon years ago.

  Chapter Five

  I sat in the car for a moment before turning over the ignition. After five years of working my ass off on the beat, I finally had my big break.

  I closed my eyes and savored the sugar rush of excitement. Joining the MEA was like making the big leagues. No more blisters on my heels from walking the beat. No more washing my hands twenty times a day to get the sour, junkie stench off my fingers. No more disappointment when the promotion was passed to someone else. Now, I’d finally be able to go after the big dicks. The wizards who orchestrated the covens. The master cookers who developed the potions. The moneymen who made sure cash and magic flowed through Babylon’s veins like tainted blood.

  My cell shouted in the car’s quiet interior. Opening my eyes, I scrambled to grab it. “Prospero.”

  “Gardner called?” Eldritch said by way of greeting.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Need you to come in today to sign some paperwork before you start.”

  “What kind of paperwork?”

  “A couple of payroll forms since MEA will be footing the bill for you while you work with them.”

  I rolled my eyes. The brass was always downplaying the amount of paperwork we needed to fill out. His “couple of forms” were probably more like ten pages filled out in triplicate, signed in blood with the promise of my firstborn. “I’ll be there within the hour.”