by Jaye Wells
“The game’s not over yet, bitch,” Harry spat back.
I laughed. “Maybe, but you lost this round.”
“True enough.” Harry tilted his head and looked me straight in the eye. “But when the final buzzer rings, you’ll be the one crying, bitch.”
Hanson jerked his arms and pulled him away. “Let’s go.” Even though Hanson and I didn’t get along as a rule, no cop liked to hear another one getting threatened.
As they walked away, Mez whistled under his breath. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a fan there.”
I shrugged. “Harry’s had it in for me since we were kids.”
“Why?” Morales asked.
“Who knows?” I said with a casual indifference. But I was lying. I knew from an early age that Harry resented the fact that Abe was grooming me to take over the Votaries eventually, while Bane treated Harry like a nuisance or an errand boy. His jealousy had oxidized over time and added to the insult of being forced to betray his coven.
“Anyway,” Morales said, not sounding very concerned or interested, “we need to get busy on a plan for tomorrow morning.”
I sighed and nodded with a glance at my watch. It had already been five hours since I dropped Danny off to hang with Baba. “Would you guys mind meeting at my place?”
Morales frowned. “You worried about the kid?”
I nodded. “Baba’s been known to doze off and I don’t want to risk his sneaking out because I’m out late.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” Mez said. “I’ll call Shadi to come meet us.” She was keeping an eye on the Arteries to make sure there weren’t any signs of circling the wagons.
I gave Mez the address. He ran off so he could stop by the gym on the way over to get some files and supplies. After he was gone, Gardner came out of her meeting with the attorney and the captain. We told her the plan. Her eyes flared when she heard we were meeting at my house but she didn’t comment. Instead, she said, “Don’t fuck this up.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” Morales responded drily.
Our boss crossed her arms and looked at both of us with an expression not unlike that of a general before a battle. “Encouragement implies failure’s an option.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Morales and I got to the house, Danny came upstairs from his basement room looking like someone cancelled Christmas. “I thought you’d be working late.”
“We are. We’ll just be doing it from here.” I held up the box of pizza we’d picked up. “Hungry?”
“No.”
Shit, I thought. Teenagers never turn down pizza.
I turned to Morales. “Give me a minute, okay?”
He nodded and turned to chat up Baba. As I led Danny back down to his room, I heard the old lady say, “Uh-oh!” A thud followed—like the sound of a remote hitting the floor. “Would you be a dear and bend over to pick that up for me?” I shook my head and kept going. Morales didn’t seem the type to need saving from geriatric sexual harassment.
“I thought you were gonna work,” Danny complained as I pushed him toward his room.
I closed the door behind me before I spoke. “In a minute,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “All right, so you want to learn magic. I get it, okay? But what you did today was not only incredibly stupid and the exact wrong way to get me to change my mind, it was also dangerous.”
The way he jutted that stubborn chin out it might as well have been a middle finger.
“John Volos used to be your friend—”
“He was your friend, too, Kate.”
I gritted my teeth and sighed. “Was, past tense. Now, he’s a suspect in an investigation I’m working on.”
Danny’s eyes flared. “Really?”
I nodded. “And when you showed up at his apartment, you put both the case and my job at risk.” I wasn’t lying. At the time, that had been true. I didn’t feel the need to tell Danny that Volos appeared to be innocent now. It worked in my favor for the kid to believe the worst about his former hero.
“I-I didn’t know,” he said.
“It never occurred to me that I’d need to warn you. But even if I wasn’t investigating him, you should know better than to leave school grounds without permission so you can show up unannounced at a stranger’s house.”
“He’s not a stranger!”
“Fine, but, Danny, you know John used to be wrapped up in dirty magic.” Still was, probably, I amended silently. He might not be behind Gray Wolf, but I hadn’t forgotten that he had imported a large amount of oil of rose quartz. Just because he hadn’t committed the crime we suspected didn’t mean he was innocent of all crime.
Danny crossed his arms. “You used to cook dirty, too, and you’re a good person.”
His logic made me press my lips together into a grimace. Damn kids and their ability to make things so simple. So black-and-white. “When you’re older you’ll thank me for looking out for you.”
He snorted.
“Anyway,” I said, “magic discussion aside, you’ll be in detention after school for the next week for skipping school.”
“Come on!” He threw up his hands.
I shrugged. “You should get on your knees and thank Pen for convincing them not to suspend you.”
He sighed from deep in his lungs. “This really sucks.”
“Could have been worse, kid,” I said. I shuddered inwardly to think about how bad it could have been. He could have remembered that Ramses Bane was his godfather and gone to him instead.
“Whatever.”
I clenched my fists and pasted a fake smile on my face. “All righty, then. I have to go plan a raid on the Arteries.”
His face perked up. “No shit?”
I didn’t even bother to correct his language. The curse jar was all the way upstairs, and, frankly, I was starting to wonder if the ban on cursing was more for his benefit or mine. “No shit.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
I considered lying, but clearly my attempt to whitewash the darker aspects of my job had backfired big-time recently. “Yeah, but I’ll be careful.”
“Are you going to use any protective potions?”
I chewed on my lip and changed my mind about honesty. What Danny didn’t know might save him lots of worry. “Sure,” I said, “the MEA requires them.”
He visibly relaxed. “All right. Good.”
I nodded. “Good talk,” I said awkwardly. “I’ll, uh, leave you to your homework then.”
“Hey, Kate?”
I paused. “Yeah?”
“You used to like magic, right?”
I paused. Not sure why the question caught me off guard. Maybe I’d spent so much time avoiding magic because it had caused so much pain. But he looked so open and honest, I couldn’t wave off the question with a flippant response. “Yeah, I did like. A lot. Too much.”
“Hmm,” he said. “It’s a shame then.”
“What?”
“That you had to give up something you loved.”
“Sometimes we love things that aren’t good for us, Danny.”
“I just—I wonder if things were different and you tried using magic to help people maybe you’d be happier.”
Something bright and hot exploded behind my eyes. I don’t want to call it an epiphany, but it was definitely one of those sharp moments that mark some significant shift in one’s perception of the world. Problem was, I was wholly unprepared for it, and, besides, I had a kitchen full of cops who were waiting for me to help them plan a raid on people who used magic to hurt people.
“I, uh,” I stammered, “yeah, I guess.” I swallowed hard. An emotion I couldn’t name was swelling in my chest and I suddenly felt ridiculously close to tears. “I need to get upstairs. Don’t forget to do your—yeah, your homework and stuff.” With that I exited as fast as possible, closing the door behind me. I leaned back against the painted surface and tried to catch my breath.
All this time, I thought I’d been a good role model.
I’d tried my damnedest to give Danny a happy life. But to hear he saw me as an unhappy person felt as if someone had let all the helium out of my balloon. Not to mention, it never occurred to me to think of magic as something I had a choice in using for good or bad. I’d struggled so much with leaving the coven behind that I’d had to convince myself that being near any magic at all was like exposing myself to poison. Back then it was a matter of self-preservation. Still was. And when I’d decided to become a cop I figured it was a way to balance the scales. Erase all the bad stuff I’d done back in the day. Never once had I considered using magic to make amends.
I shook myself. It was ridiculous. Yeah, some people used magic to help others, but my addiction to cooking had come from a selfish place, not an altruistic one. Besides, I did plenty of good as a cop.
“Yo, Prospero?” Morales’s voice called down the stairs.
“Yeah?”
“You got any beer in this joint?”
And with that, my brief existential crisis skidded to a halt. I didn’t have time for what-ifs or some noble, happy life filled with aiding the downtrodden. I had a raid to plan and a dick partner who sounded like he was going to riot if I didn’t make it Miller Time STAT.
* * *
My kitchen was cramped for a preraid strategy session, but we made do. The blueprints of the Arteries that Shadi scored were spread across the table and held in place by a beer can on each corner.
“Harry said that Bane keeps the stash near his throne room—here,” Morales was saying, pointing to the spot on the map. “Makes sense he’d want it close enough to monitor.”
“Looks simple enough,” Shadi said. “We’ll only have to go down a couple of branches of the tunnels to reach it.”
“Navigating won’t be the problem,” I said.
“What will be?” Mez asked.
“Getting to it before Bane’s Sentinels can destroy the evidence.”
“What’s a Sentinel?” Shadi asked.
“Bane’s blood fiends,” I said. “He pays for their loyalty with blood potions. One or two won’t be a big deal. But he’ll have several guarding the stash and more on the lookout for intruders.”
“Not to mention,” Morales added, “he might have some assholes hopped-up on Gray Wolf waiting for us.”
“Which means we’ll need major firepower,” I said.
“Not a problem.” Shadi smiled. “I’ll take lead on ammo and hardware.”
Morales turned to Mez. “And we’ll need you to bring some magical weapons, too.”
The wizard rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. I’ve been wanting to try this new potion bomb I developed. Causes paralysis and temporary blindness.”
“Remind me never to piss you off, Mez,” I said. He winked at me.
“All right, so the plan is to go in with the tactical wizards, make sure they have the main tunnel under control, and then split off to find Bane and his cache.”
“He’ll know we’re there the instant we breach the tunnel,” I warned. “Probably has an emergency escape route, too.”
“Eldritch will post cops at every exit. Gardner will make sure of it if Eldritch doesn’t.”
“And if he has a secret tunnel or something?” Shadi asked. “Do we chase?”
“Gardner said our goal is to find the stash. That way even if Bane slips away we’ll at least have the evidence we need to charge him.”
“Okay,” Morales said. “Shadi, let’s go over weapons.”
“Prospero?” she said. “You got any experience with assault rifles?”
I grimaced. “Yes.” My mind went back to that day at the academy where I managed to take out the lighting system on the target rig when recoil knocked me on my ass. “None of it good.”
“Really? Hmm. There’s really nothing like the kick of a Colt in your hands.”
“I’m more comfortable with a Glock and a salt flare.”
“We’ll have to work on that. Maybe hit the range together so I can give you some pointers.” She pursed her lips. “In the meantime, Morales and I will lead the charge. You two will have our backs. You with your Glock and Mez with his potions.”
I smiled. Not because I was looking forward to shooting anyone, but because her offer to take me to the range meant she considered me part of the team—one who might be sticking around for a while.
“Okay,” Morales said. “We’re supposed to meet up with Eldritch and the raid team at oh-nine-hundred. Shadi and Mez, go to the gym and make sure we have everything we need. Then try to get some sleep.”
They stood and gathered their things, chattering excitedly about how tomorrow we’d finally blow this case wide open. Morales, though, didn’t look excited as much as resigned. After Shadi and Mez left, he hung back a second. “I need to talk to you about something.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “What’s up?”
“I didn’t want to talk about this in front of everyone else because I know it’s a sensitive topic for you.”
I frowned. “Okay.”
“Defensive potions are required of all officers taking part in the raid.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a hand.
“That’s handed down from both Gardner and Eldritch. No patch, no play.”
My shoulders drooped.
“I know how you feel about using magic, so I figured I’d talk to you about it now. If you throw a shit fit in front of Eldritch about it, Gardner will cut you from the case. Period. So make your decision now.”
“I’ll have my wand and salt flare, and I’ll be wearing a ballistics vest with salt slabs. Isn’t that enough?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t a traffic stop, Prospero. Raids are no joke. It’s going to be chaos down there and we can’t chance you getting hit with a potion from one of Bane’s people. If you go down, it’ll put all of us in danger.”
I knew he was right. If I got hit, he and the rest of the team would be too distracted trying to render aid to complete the mission. Also if I got separated from the team, they’d risk valuable minutes trying to locate me. So I couldn’t blame Gardner or Eldritch for requiring the potion for all the cops involved. But that left me with either sitting out and depriving my team of the extra manpower or compromising my principles for the job.
“If it’s any consolation, Gardner said that she’s really pleased with your contributions to the team. If we’re successful tomorrow, it will ensure the MEA giving the green light on us having a more permanent presence in the Cauldron. And that would mean a spot for you, too. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Of course that’s what I want,” I said, raising my hands. “But how would you feel if the MEA required you to do something you didn’t feel comfortable with to get the job done?”
He laughed as if I’d made a joke. “Sooner or later, we’re all asked to do something we don’t want to do, Cupcake.” His ironic tone hinted it was a more common than an every-now-and-then thing. “Why did you become a cop?”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, just walking away from your coven would have been enough. But you walked away and became a cop. Why?”
I wasn’t about to get into my mother’s death or how being a cop was a form of penance, so I just shrugged. “I guess I thought I’d see how the other half lived.”
He shot me a look that told me bullshit wasn’t going to cut it.
I sighed. “Fine. I decided to go to the academy because after so many years of being part of the problem I guess I wanted to make a difference.”
“Did you feel like you were making a difference on patrol?”
“Not enough of one,” I said honestly. He’d smell the lie anyway. “That’s why I talked my way onto the task force.”
“Because you wanted to go after the source of the magic?”
I nodded.
“Well, this is your chance. Do you really want to blow it because you’re afraid to wear a stupid protection patch?”
I rai
sed my chin. “I’m not afraid.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I almost believed it, too. “I’m just worried it’s a slippery slope. Today it’s a simple protection spell. What about next month when Gardner wants me to go undercover and I have to use a glamour potion? Or next year when she asks me to cook because Mez needs help?”
“You’ll have to take it as it comes, I guess,” he said. “For the record, I think you’re making a mistake if you walk away from this. You’re a good cop, and anyone can tell how much you care about this city. Don’t let your pride stop you.”
I crossed my arms and chewed on my bottom lip, thinking it over. If I said no, I’d be put back on patrol once the paperwork clearing me of the Harkins shooting came through. That would mean endless nights trolling the streets for low-level pushers while wizards like Bane and Volos got away with murder—both figuratively and literally. Was I really willing to walk away from the real game? Go back to arresting the same junkies over and over while the real criminals lived it up?
I stood straighter. “No,” I said. Morales’s eyebrows slammed down and disappointment washed over his face. I held up a hand. “No, I’m not going to walk away. I’ll wear the patch. Just this once.”
A brilliant smile lit up his handsome face. “’Atta girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I woke up the next morning on a gasp. The dream I’d been having clung to my subconscious with razor claws, but I couldn’t remember the details. All I knew was my skin was coated in sweat and my limbs were sore as if I’d been fighting.
The blue lines on the clock slowly focused to form a seven and two zeroes. I briefly considered trying to go back to sleep, but Danny would be up for school soon and I didn’t want to miss the chance to see him off. With a sigh, I scrubbed my hand over my face and rose to confront the day. I threw on my ratty robe and walked into the kitchen.
Danny wasn’t up yet, so I started pulling out the eggs. As I did, I noticed the pile of mail that I’d tossed on the counter yesterday when I’d arrived with Morales. I flipped through quickly, ignoring the junk mail and bills in favor of a single red envelope, which stuck out from the bottom of the stack like a wound.