by Jaye Wells
“Where’s your list?” I asked, looking up. He grabbed a file folder from a leather satchel he’d brought with him and flipped through to a page with a list written in his bold cursive. Comparing the two, I realized his correlated with what I’d seen so far, but then I saw something different.
I looked up. “Dragon’s blood? You’re sure?”
“That was a guess,” he said. “It can have psychoactive effects.”
“But this is also a blood potion,” I said. “Dragon’s blood would make the wolf’s blood coagulate.”
He frowned. “Willow’s bark or cat’s claw would prevent that.”
“That doesn’t seem right.” I shook my head. “We’re missing something.”
I checked the beaker and was pleased to see the potion reducing quickly. Hopefully once it thickened enough I could dry it and analyze it in powder form.
“Kate?” he said quietly.
I turned my head to the side to look at him through the veil of my hair.
“You’re stalling.”
I stretched and worked the kinks out of my neck. As I did, I caught the time on a clock he’d installed over the distilling apparatus. Two hours had passed. I glanced quickly toward the large windows and was shocked to see it was already full night. At some point while I’d worked, John had turned on the large lights overhead. With some embarrassment, I realized that I’d been enjoying myself so much I hadn’t even noticed the time passing.
“I’m not stalling,” I said. “I’m trying to be thorough. Magic isn’t the answer to everything, John.” The beaker was hot, so I used the cuff of my shirt to pick it up. I tipped it over to spread it out on a drying sheet.
“Messing with those beakers isn’t going to cure Danny. Time’s a-wasting, Kate.”
Something hot burst in my stomach. Guilt. But also fear and definitely a lot of resentment. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t decided to build on Bane’s turf.” When in doubt, turn your anger on someone else. So much easier than facing your own role in the problem.
He crossed his arms. “You really want to play the blame game or are you going to make shit happen?”
I wanted to rage at him. I wanted to punish him for bringing me here. I wanted to walk away.
Unfortunately he was right. I could resist reality or I could accept that I just had to do the damn thing, as Pen was fond of saying. “Fine,” I snapped. “Do you have a divining bowl?” I almost prayed he didn’t.
He smiled. “Of course.” He reached to a top shelf and pulled down the most beautiful divining bowl I’d ever seen. The porcelain was so fine it was practically transparent. Once again I was struck with how far we were from the days working in my mom’s kitchen, reading potions in the chipped coffee mugs she stole from the Blue Plate Diner. “Like it?” he asked, mistaking my look for admiration. “Bought it at auction last year. It’s from Jingdezhen. The alchemist who fired the porcelain named it the ‘Bowl of Illumination.’”
I sighed and shrugged. “It’s fine.”
He frowned like I’d insulted his manhood. Jesus, what happened to the ’hood rat who once gave me wilted dandelions as a romantic token?
“Grab me another ampoule,” I said. His frown deepened, as if his patience with my bossing him around was losing its novelty.
He set the new vial next to my hand. “What else do you need?”
“Lights out, complete silence, and some privacy.”
His left eye twitched like he was trying to decide if he should argue with me about the privacy part. Apparently my own look told him that this was one area where I wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t about to let him stare at me like a voyeur while I stumbled my way through serious magic for the first time in a decade.
“Suit yourself.” He turned on his heel and marched toward the archway that led to the old factory floor. “There’s matches and candles in the drawer to your left,” he called over his shoulder. A second later the overhead lights extinguished, leaving me alone in the pitch black. Through the large windows to my right, I saw lights from the Mundane part of town glowing cheerfully across the river.
With a sigh, I removed the gloves and scrubbed my damp palms on my thighs. My hands fumbled with the drawer, but soon a small flame licked the darkness. I blew out a long, centering breath. Showtime.
I poured the entire vial in the divining bowl. The potion’s rusty color looked like old blood against the pristine white. I took a step back and closed my eyes. Drew in air through the nose, expanding my ribs. A pause. Exhaled slowly, yet audibly, through the mouth. Repeat twice. Imagined circling myself with an aura of golden, protective light since reading dirty magic opened one up to all sorts of negative energies. Once I felt as though I’d cleansed and protected myself, I opened my eyes and began.
Stepping up to the table, I raised the bowl and swirled it widdershins three times. I raised my left hand and held it over the liquid. The potion’s energy reached toward mine like metal shavings toward a magnet. I touched the dark light of its aura gingerly at first. A tingle skipped up my arm.
Next, I swirled my left hand up, gathering the energy into a ball and balancing it on my fingertips. It glowed as if someone had flipped on a black light. Inside the center of the ball was a poison green core. Its energy rolled through me like thunder.
“Who made you?” I whispered.
The core began to shift and morph. At first it looked like a blob of mercury rolling in space. But then, slowly, it turned into the shape of a wolf. The symbolism for that was obvious given the purpose of Gray Wolf. Squinting, I pulled my hand closer for a better look. The wolf morphed into the shape of a cat with its hackles high. The symbol of a deceitful acquaintance. That wasn’t much of a shock. That cat became a dragon—the symbol of Bane’s coven. So far, so good.
I held my breath and tried to will the magic to reveal itself faster, but magic had its own agenda. The dragon’s fire spread out to form a protective barrier around it, but from the resulting smoke a new creature emerged. The monster had the head and feet of a rooster but the tail of a serpent. It was a basilisk.
Like a flashbulb, the mysterious wizard’s identity appeared behind my eyes. My stomach pitched and rolled into icy waters.
The rooster reared back its head and let forth balls of flame and a high-pitched hiss. The dragon exploded, leaving behind a bag of gold. Then the basilisk transformed into a green, crowned serpent, which curled around the gold and began to swallow its own tail.
The symbols came so fast and furious and the messages they delivered were so troubling, I felt shaky and my skin was clammy with sweat.
But the magic wasn’t done telling me its story. The image shifted and a second snake appeared. The two serpents braided over each other until they started swallowing each other’s tails, creating a sort of infinity symbol. In the next instant, a sun, moon, and six-pointed star rose behind the entwined snakes. On a gut level, I knew this last image had nothing to do with who created the potion. It was a portent, a warning.
I released the energy so fast I doubled over as if I’d been punched. Gasping, I sucked in air and steadied myself with a hand on the table. The magic might have dispersed, but the images still haunted me.
The basilisk. It could be only one person. The worst possible foe.
Abraxas Prospero.
Now, in addition to the symbols, questions swirled through my head as if it were a centrifuge. How in the hell did Abe get involved in Bane’s plans? And more important, why? What did he have to gain? Because Abraxas Prospero never did anything without expecting a personal boon.
And then I remembered how the investigation had played out. How all signs seemed to point at Volos’s being responsible for Gray Wolf. When it became clear Bane was involved I figured he’d tried to frame John because he’d dared go after the Sangs’ turf. But now I realized that if Abe was involved, the motive had been much simpler than a turf war.
Abe wanted revenge. He’d tried to frame John for Gray Wolf to make him pay for
betraying him.
“Goddamn it,” I whispered.
The lights flashed on overhead, disorienting me even more. I tried to pull myself upright despite feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, but suddenly two strong arms came around to support my weight. My senses filled with the sharp bite of ozone and the woodsy fragrance of John’s aftershave.
He cursed under his breath as he caught me. “Kate? What’s wrong?”
I licked my lips and blinked rapidly as vision came rushing back. John’s frown was blurry at first, but a relief from the static. But then an image of the basilisk superimposed itself over that face. Fear raced through me, along with a need for action.
I pushed away from John and stumbled toward the shelves. My eyes scanned the bottles for the ingredient I needed.
“Kate?” John stood directly behind me. I could feel his worry. “What did you see?”
“No time,” I snapped. “Where’s the green vitriol?”
“Just tell me—”
I rounded on him, my fear manifesting as anger I directed at him. “Did you know?” I demanded, my voice rising.
He squinted and tilted his head. “Know what?”
I paused because I was suddenly afraid. Almost as if saying the name would somehow summon the devil into that brewery. I shook my head and kept combing through the cabinets.
He grabbed my arms and forced me to look at him. “What?” He shook me a little, as if he was trying to rattle sense into my brain. “Tell me.”
I told myself to tread lightly. His reaction to my next words would determine how this would play out. “It was Uncle Abe.”
It appeared in his eyes first, the rage. Then his confused expression tightened, contracted as the dominoes of evidence fell in his mind. “That’s not possible.”
His left hand was wrapped around my left wrist. I looked down at his-and-hers Ouroboros tattoos. Dragging my eyes from the image, which was too disturbingly reminiscent of the vision I’d just had, I looked him in the eye. “You know it is very possible.”
He shook me again. “Are you absolutely certain it was him?”
Was I? It had been so long since I’d read magic I couldn’t blame him for his distrust. Some symbols were open to interpretation, but some were as sharp and bright as a honed knife’s blade. “Yeah,” I said, swallowing bile. “I’m sure.”
John dropped his arms and stepped back. He shook his head in denial. Easier to fool himself than to accept how well and truly screwed he’d be if I was right. Because if Abe was calling the shots behind Bane the whole time, we’d been playing a child’s game without realizing we were really fighting a war.
Anger flared in my gut. “Thanks for dragging me into this bullshit, by the way.”
His eyes flared. “I didn’t drag you into anything, Kate. You’re conveniently forgetting that you wouldn’t have gotten involved in this at all if you hadn’t killed that MEA snitch or talked your way onto the case.”
I shook my head even though he was right. It hurt too much to accept that my own ambitions had started the chain reaction that led to Danny’s getting hurt and my having to cook to save him. Being angry at John was so much easier than turning that weapon on myself.
“Whatever,” I said. “It really doesn’t matter how either of us ended up in the middle of this. This big question is, How did Abe pull this off and what’s his endgame?”
He stared at me hard for a second, as if he couldn’t decide whether to let me off that easily, but in the end he played along. “Let’s face it: The warden at Crowley probably can’t take a shit without Abe’s permission.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “And the endgame?”
“Knowing Abe there’s no way we’ll ever see that coming. Better to focus on using what we know now to finish the antipotion.”
I nodded and blew out a deep breath. “Where’s the green vitriol?”
He frowned. “For what?”
“That wasn’t dragon’s blood in the Gray Wolf. It was cinnabar.”
“Shit. Of course.” He let out a breath. The basilisk wasn’t just a nickname for Abe, it was also a symbol for cinnabar, which is why Abe used it in most of his alchemical potions. “How did I miss that?”
I shrugged. “Because he wanted us to miss it. He put in extra quicksilver to help disguise it, probably.” I moved a few bottles around looking for what I needed.
“Green vitriol is over there.” He sounded weary. “Might be a good idea to add some extra sulfur, too, just to balance it out.”
I looked up and over at the cabinet he pointed toward. This one had locked doors. Not surprising. High-quality green vitriol was expensive and difficult to lay hands on since the government regulated its sale. “The key?”
He removed it from his pocket and tossed it over. “There’s not much.”
“I only need a little. Enough for a cure for Danny.” I pulled down the small vial filled with green crystals. I poured a quarter gram into an unglazed earthenware container.
“Kate?”
I ignored him. So far I’d been doing a fairly decent job of convincing myself not to freak out about Abe’s involvement. Keeping my hands busy helped, and so did just plain old denial. But fear was curling around the edges of the wall I’d erected, like poisonous smoke. As much as I tried to convince myself that I could just get the cure for Danny and then go on with my life, the truth was I was now tangled up in Uncle Abe’s web as sure as Volos was.
John got tired of waiting for me to respond. “I’m sorry.”
I shoved the green vitriol into the furnace. The heat from the flames was intense and made my skin burn. I wanted to pretend I hadn’t heard him. I didn’t want his apology. I didn’t want our shared predicament to forge any sort of intimacy. “Forget about it,” I said finally. I turned before I continued, “I’m just here to help Danny. Don’t expect me to help you fight him, John. I can’t afford to get involved any more than I am.”
He watched me for a moment. My gaze skittered from the disappointment in his eyes. Finally, he nodded curtly. “You think that’s going to work?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” I said. “Otherwise we’ll be screwed.”
A laugh echoed through the lab. Low, mean, and very unexpected. We both swung around to see Ramses Bane himself standing by the doorway. “Oh, I’d say you’re both a little more than screwed.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
My gun was in my hand before Bane finished his sentence. “Stay where you are.”
Those doll eyes were dancing with humor and his lips were twisted into a sick pretender of a smile. “Does that mean I’m not invited to your little magic party?” His tongue darted out to lick his pale lips, like a predator tasting blood on the air. “Put down the gun, please.” He had one of his own pointed at us.
It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d forced my brother to use a potion that almost killed him. Maybe still would. Hatred boiled up in my stomach, and my fingers itched to scratch his eyes out. But I couldn’t let him see how angry I was because he’d use it to his advantage. No, I had to play it nice and cool, even if I felt anything but. “My team is already on their way here, Bane.”
While I spoke, I slid the vial of antipotion up my left shirtsleeve. If Bane got ahold of it, we’d have to create a new batch from scratch, which would delay my ability to get it to Danny. Although, honestly, hiding it was a mere formality. I’d tear Bane apart with my bare hands if he tried to take it.
“Don’t be silly. Your team isn’t coming for you at all.”
“Yes, they are,” I said. “You’ve got maybe two minutes.”
He laughed too confidently. “Nope.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’ve been watching you, Katherine.” At my curse, he chuckled. “That dreadful car of yours isn’t exactly difficult to spot.”
John’s hand came up to grab my arm in warning. “What do you want, Bane?” he demanded.
Bane threw back his bald head and laughed.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” He glanced toward the end of the aisle. “Michael, come help your friend get more comfortable.”
From the shadows behind the coven leader, Officer Michael Hanson entered the room with a gun raised high. “Drop the weapon, Prospero.”
Rage threatened to boil out of every pore in my body. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m more comfortable with the gun,” I quipped, but the tremor in my voice gave me away.
Bane’s lips quirked at my bravado. Hanson made quick work of divesting me of the Glock and the S&P spray from the pocket of my jacket. He didn’t take the amulet tucked into my bra, though. Or the salt flare at my ankle. Rookie fucking mistake.
But there was no way for me to activate the amulet with Bane watching me like a hawk staring down some juicy carrion, and they were both positioned to put a bullet through my brain before I got anywhere near my ankle.
A smile spread over his cherry Kool-Aid lips. Now that Hanson had his own weapon and mine pointed at us, Bane put his weapon in his waistband and removed something from his jacket pocket. He held it up for us to see that it was a vial. He popped open the top of the ampoule and brought the potion to his nose for a sniff. “Mmmm,” he murmured. “This is something new I cooked up. A youth potion.” He glanced at me and winked. “None of us are getting any younger, are we?”
With deliberate movements, he darted the tip of his tongue out for a taste. “Coppery.” He closed his eyes and tasted again. “Sweet. That’s the goji berry, I think. Oh, and there’s the turmeric and chili.” He opened his eyes and licked his lips. “Spicy.”
He tipped back the vial and drank the rest of the potion. His eyes rolled back and his whole body shuddered.
An unsettling giggle escaped him. “My tongue is numb.” He leaned forward and whispered, “It’s the cocaine. I add it for energy.” He placed a pale finger in front of his lips, as if it was our little secret.
“You’re a lunatic.” Volos’s tone was calm but had a cadence that was engineered to make the listener feel like an idiot.
“Careful, boy. I’ve skinned men for less insult.” Bane sniffed. “Tell me honestly, Kate. How is dear Danny doing?”